Police Work and Its Effects on the Family
INTRODUCTION
Police work and how it effects the family is an extremely complex subject. The role of a police officer is ambiguous and requires one to use discretion to perform their duties. While researching this paper it was found that there is minim to no education for officers during their training to guide them in the use of discretion or how to handle stress. Nor is there education offered after assuming their professional role as a police officer on effective techniques to use discretion or handle stress. This in turn causes stress to the officer. The stress that officers incur in their profession can be transferred to or shared by his/her family. Stress can be thought of as a state of extreme difficulty, pressure or strain. To be more precise, stress can be a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and can be capable of affecting physical health (Merriam and Webster, 1980).