female officers/ptsd

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Female Officers/PTSD
The society people grow in has installed in society a certain perspective about police officers. Most of the stories people tell about police officers are either true, false or just stereotypic stories people tell to portray a certain image about the police. Stereotypic stories about the police are meant to discredit the cops most of the time (Johnson 1). Police stereotypes have been in existence as long as the police forces have existed. The most affected police officer is female as she has to deal with society and her fellow male counterparts (Johnson 1). Male police officers never fail to make female officers feel inferior.
Some of the common stereotypes of police officers both negative and positive are cops love doughnuts; police officers have quotas and the old Irish officer. In the USA police officers are assumed to eat sugary fast foods to gain energy in the short-term. A police loving the doughnuts is the most used stereotype in the USA (Johnson 3). Police officers know the existence of such perception towards them, and they often try not to park their patrol cars near doughnut shops. Not that it is not true that police meet at doughnut shops, they meet there because it is the only place they can have coffee at three in the morning.
Secondly, society has the notion that police officers have quotas on the number of arrests they must make per day (Johnson 3). Many people get tickets from police officers believing they are just unlucky to have met the police officer when the ticket was to be issued.

For a police officer to show up to the bosses that they are working, they must make arrests, receive phone calls and take reports. A police officer has to account for what they engage in if all other police officers have made arrests and a certain officer has not made a single arrest. However, some police officers may go out of their way to make arrests just to prove to the seniors that they are working, but that does not absolve the police having quotas from being stereotypic.
Thirdly, the old Irish officer stereotype is promoted by cartoon shows that show an Irish cop who is rogue. Since the commencement of guided policing in America, police officers have been considered to be thugs (Johnson 4). The perception of police being thugs is slowly fading away in the USA, but that is not the case in developing countries. Earlier Irish immigrants to the USA secured jobs with the police force where they were the majority. Ironically most of the people arrested by the Irish officers were Irish hence the nickname for the police van ‘Paddy Wagon’, where the word paddy is a derogatory term for the Irish.
Most of the stereotypes above are those present in the American setting, in the third world countries especially Africa, different stereotypes exist. The police in Africa specifically Kenya are considered to be academic dwarfs. In Kenya to join the police force one must be tall, be physically endowed and have thirty-two teeth (Barkan 89). The academic qualifications of entering the force were initially completion of primary education. For a very long time, before police reforms took place, the police force was a job for the academically challenged. However, there were professionals in the forces, thus making the generalization that police were academic dwarfs a stereotype.
Representation of females it the police force has increased over the years as the police forces are encouraged to allocate employment vacancies equally to all genders. Male police officers are known to make fun of their ‘weak’ female counterparts. Given the disapproval of male police officers, female police are left with the option of working hard to disapprove the assumptions of their male counterparts. Over and above the workplace stereotypic work perceptions, the female police officer has to deal with the society as expected of her gender (Johnson 1). Most societal settings believe that a woman ought to act womanly hence the tough act put on by female police officers is not welcome in society. The society will be okay if a male police officer uses force in the course of their work, but that does not apply to the female police officer. The perception of society and that of male police officers put the female police officer in a situation that she has to live with stereotypic assertions each day of their life.
Stress is the state of extreme difficulty, pressure or strain on a person. Stress can cause disruptions that are either mentally or emotionally targeted (House 18). Stress is capable of affecting the health of an individual. Before delving into the effects of stress on the law enforcement officers, it is proper to know the sources of stress.
Apart from the stereotypes about police officers, the causes of stress on police officers are many and varied for each officer. Police officers risk their lives each day of their life while working as police officers. Police are tasked where no one else would wish to themselves. Most people do not consider the police officers to be part of the community but as some objects that are summoned whenever there is a need. It is common people to get upset at police officers for showing up later to a scene when they have been called.
Police officers get stressed from the society and the workplace. At work, a police officer has to serve the public with inadequate, outdated, and broken equipment (House 13). Police are used to getting and excessive overtime at work due to the nature of their job. The most wanting and disastrous happenings come minutes before an officer is to complete their shift. Dedicated to serving the public, an officer can not drive home claiming their shift is over when the replacing officer has not reported to work. Adjusting to different shifts causes stress to police officers as they have to bear with frequent rotating shifts. Regular changes in duties is another cause of stress as an officer may spend two days doing paperwork and the next place he/she engages gangs shooting at each other. Away from stress brought about by the police job, police officers are humans too as they have a family, financial, and health problems.
In the USA battles among policing agencies cause stress to the police officers. An officer may be struggling for a long time to pin down a criminal only to be reassigned from the case when the load of the work has been completed (House 7). Another instance when officers get stressed up is when an officer puts all her/his efforts in pursuing an offender for the court to release the offender on bail, probation or parole. Some police officers may go to the extent of making sure the offender is justly punished by either shooting down the offender if he/she was released on technicality grounds like lack of evidence and the officer believes the offender is guilty.
Stress is known to be accompanied by any of the following symptoms fatigue, insomnia and restlessness, lowered sex drive, and drinking a lot of alcohol (House 8). The long hours at the workplace especially the delayed change of shifts cause fatigue. The problem associated with frequent shift changes is the body does not get the required time to reset to the new shift. The soul needs at least thirty days to adjust to the new shift. Irregular shifts affect the circadian rhythm which is the internal clock that regulates the biological actions of a person. Frequent changes in shift, lead to personal and family stress.
When the human body is stressed, adrenaline and cortisol are released thus increasing the heart rate, change in muscle tension and blood vessel constriction (Fratesi 5). Repeated stress can lead to adrenal exhaustion and development of extended fatigue. A police officer who s fatigued while on duty may have difficulty making cognitive decisions as the officer can easily error in judgment thus make poor decisions.
In the situations when stress prevents normal sleeping times which are at least six hours a day, an officer suffers from sleep deprivation. Studies have shown that the effects of sleep deprivation are the same as those of excessive drinking of alcohol. Alcohol and sleep deprivation are known to cause impaired speech, balance problems, impaired eye-hand coordination, and sleeping while driving.
Continued stress on a person, causes changes to the sleeping patterns of police officers. The cortisol cycle controls sleeping patterns; a body that reacts to stress can interfere with the cortisol cycle (Fratesi 5). Policing requires enough rest for the body to regain such that a person can be alert and able to concentrate on executing duties properly as a police officer.
To some people, it is a tradition that has been accepted as the right to have a glass of wine, beer, or whiskey at the end of a working day to help unwind. Stressful jobs make people drink more than just a glass as they feel more relaxed when drunk (House 22). Heavy drinking is common among law enforcement as they develop the habit of getting rid of their stress through alcohol. Remotely connected to alcohol and the whole issue of stress is the lowered sex drive among law enforcement officers. Chronic stress and overdrinking of alcohol are associated with low libido.
The effects of stress on the police force include using the sickest time for the police officers, difficulty managing relationships, poor time management, and making mistakes on departmental and court work, sleeping on duty. The list continues with a rise in citizen reports on police misconduct, strained relationship with supervisors, lack of preparedness for court sessions, increased accidental injuries on duty, earlier retirement, and most officers are likely to get injured or killed due to lack of focus (Fratesi 2).
Police work tends to create a gap between the family left at home and the partner at work. Due to the secrecy of police work especially where undercover tasks are involved neglect occurs easily. Undercover tasks may keep one spouse away from home causing disruption on the normal life for the kids and the spouse. A family loses it meaning when one partner has kept away due to work thus leaving her/his duties unattended.
Prolonged stress on a law enforcement officer may lead to an inability to regulate emotions, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (Matthews 5). Emotional regulation difficulties emerge from stress at work. After a stressful and long day at work, an officer becomes emotionally exhausted. Some of the causes of exhaustion at work include trying to live up to unrealistic demands and frustration; female officers suffer much from the former cause of exhaustion. When officers are asked to work long hours and deal with traumatizing crime scenes, it is likely to affect their emotional regulation later. Police officers who find difficulty in controlling their emotions are at higher risk of breaking their marriages (Fratesi 4). Research has shown that partners to a marriage have resorted to divorce if their partners consistently show an inability to control their emotions.
The interpersonal conflict for law enforcement officers bears the highest levels of negative moods. Observations made on depression, forecast it to be the world leader in causing disease. Depression affects an officer’s health and impact job performance (Matthews 6).
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a problem faced by many police officers. PTSD affects sleep patterns, may cause nightmares, and numbing of emotions (Matthews 6). People living with PTSD may start avoiding people and places that caused the stress they are suffering. Some people who have been exposed to PTSD may become overly sensitive to situations that they will avoid many individuals and places. Unfortunately, a police officer does not choose where duty will call him /her to; thus a police officer who has PTSD will continue suffering or get emotionless if they are continuously exposed to the same traumatic scenes.
Communication breakdown results when people are unable to control their emotions. It is almost impossible to communicate when stressed up as the mind is not able to make the correct judgment before executing an action (House 11). Due to stress, there results in a communication breakdown in the family and at work. People who do not communicate with other or suffer communication breakdown hence push away their friends.
Stressed people are many at times lone rangers. A stressed person can get isolated from the society to try and nurse his/her stress; this acts keep potential helpers away from the affected person thus he/she remains suffering longer than anticipated. At such moments of stress, the digestive system is affected as the liver produces extra blood sugar to boost body energy due to stress. Excess glucose in the body may cause type two diabetes (Matthews 11).
Law enforcement is a wanting job; officers get boxed from all sides, society and at work. Society has neglected police officers as not belonging to the same society they live in as police officers are either perceived to be superhuman or just objects. Female police officers face the hurdle of trying to prove their worth to their male counterparts. After all the stereotyping of police officers, traumatic crime scenes await them, long overtimes and to crown it all insufficient salary thus having to take two jobs to be financially able. The stress caused at the workplace come along with the officer to his/her home. Stress among police officers has been cited to contribute to excessive drinking, family breakdown and other health detriments.

Works cited
Barkan, Joel D. “Kenya After Moi.” Foreign Affairs (2004): 87-100.
Fratesi, Donna. “Police Work and Its Effects on the Family.”
House, Ruth. “Life as a Cop The Impacts of Policing on Police Officers: Is Policing a Lifestyle Choice?.”
Johnson, Olivia N. “Stereotypes & Misperceptions of the Police.” The Journal of Law Enforcement 1.5 (2012).
Matthews, Richard T. “The Effects of Job Stress on Law Enforcement Marriages and Methods of Combating the Job Stress.” (2011).