Giving Voice to Officers Who Experienced Life-Threatening Situations in the Line of Duty: Lessons Learned About Police Survival

Marian Pitel, Konstantinos Papazoglou and Brooke Tuttle

SAGE Open, 2018, vol. 8, issue 3, 2158244018800904

Abstract: Given the high-risk nature of police work, officers are often exposed to life-threatening critical incidents in the line of duty. The present study uses qualitative methods to explore the experiences of police officers ( n = 10) during and after life-threatening incidents as well as the strategies they utilized to cope with these experiences. In particular, the participants, who were all operational police officers during the index incidents, took part in in-depth, semi-structured interviews consisting of open-ended questions. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, verified, and then examined to identify themes, using Denzin’s approach for extracting interactional features between narratives. Several common themes between the officers’ stories were identified and organized into broader clusters of (a) experiences during life-threatening situations, (b) strategies utilized during life-threatening situations, (c) experiences after life-threatening situations, and (d) strategies utilized after life-threatening situations. Family, clinical, and organizational implications are discussed, with a unifying conclusion that highlights the importance of collaborative efforts to support officers in recovering from life-threatening situations. Finally, future research that (a) encourages studies of qualitative nature exploring the research questions with larger sample sizes and (b) investigates the interaction between family, clinical, and organizational sources of support is recommended.

Keywords: police work; trauma; survival; life-threatening situations; resilience; adaptability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:8:y:2018:i:3:p:2158244018800904

DOI: 10.1177/2158244018800904

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