A trauma-informed approach is needed to reduce police misconduct

• Published in: Industrial and organizational psychology Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 583 - 587
• Main Authors: Raver, Jana L., McElheran, Megan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.12.2022
• Subjects: Bias; Commentaries; Decision making; Emotions; Leadership; Mental disorders; Mental health; Nervous system; Neurobiology; Neurosciences; Police; Post traumatic stress disorder; Psychologists; Public safety; Threats; Trauma; Violence
• ISSN: 1754-9426; 1754-9434
• DOI: 10.1017/iop.2022.82

The nature of police officers’ jobs requires them to experience chronic exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs), that is, direct or indirect exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence (APA, 2013). [...]police agencies’ organizational cultures are often unsupportive at best (Dhanani et al.), and officers report very high levels of other organizational stressors including inconsistent leadership styles, bureaucratic red tape, lack of resources, unfair/inconsistent personnel practices, unsupportive peers, and unfair workload distributions (Bikos, 2020; Carleton et al., 2020; Ricciardelli et al., 2020). [...]we believe that interdisciplinary collaborations—such as those among I-O psychologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurobiologists—are essential to address the complex problem of how to reduce racialized violence and other forms of police misconduct. Overview of police trauma and its effects One of the problems with some I-O psychology solutions (e.g., setting performance standards, de-escalation training) laid out by Dhahani et al. is that they prioritize rational decision making, cognitive control, and self-regulation; however, these prefrontal cortex-driven executive functions are largely inactive when an individual is exposed to a life-threatening situation (Shields et al., 2016). [...]rather than having a supportive organizational environment where one’s PSNS can engage to “rest and digest” after PPTEs, the SNS stays hyperactivated due to the psychologically unsafe organizational environments in which officers work (i.e., organizational stressors). [...]many police organizations are not only failing to help officers process their PPTEs but are instead further contributing to the burden of stress officers are experiencing because of the invalidating nature of the organizational climate.