ASC Submission Summary
Rose, T.
Race and Occupational Stress in Policing:
a multi-level analysis of individual and department level variables
ABSTRACT
Occupational stress is inherent in positions like policing, because of the experiences
and situations on the job. However, in addition to these situational stressors, other
variables can affect an officers perception of stress. In addition, however, every
individual officer, by definition, works for a particular police department, and
organizational factors of that department also affect individual officers’ stress levels.
Previous literature has already shown that occupational stress differs for officers
depending upon their race. This paper seeks to further the literature by measuring
whether occupational stress for police officers differ depending more upon the individual
race of the officer (level 1) or the racial makeup of the police department for which these
officers work (level 2). In addition, this paper will explore whether other both individual
level variables, (education, experience in law enforcement, gender, and in-group/out-
group status), as well as agency level variables (state, number of officers in the agency,
and city/county) affect the officers’ perception of occupational stress. Preliminary
results show that stress differs between agencies for Hispanic officers, but not for Black
or White officers, but stress differs within agencies for all three races. This finding is
important considering the fact that many studies have dichotomized race as White and
Other, and emphasizing the importance of breaking out these races in studies further
than just this dichotomy.
THEORY
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Convention