Dr. Roger Peters, Newcastle psychologist
Source: livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/52918
This photo appeared in the News, Volume 12, Number 17, September 29 to October 13, 1986. The text was:
"Police stress investigated
Mr Roger Peters, a tutor in the Department of Psychology has just returned from an overseas investigation of police stress.
Mr Peters who has been studying and treating police stress in NSW was asked by the Police Commissioner to carry out this investigation. Mr Peters stated that “the Police Department now accepts stress as a physiological condition and a naturally occurring event where as it was previously seen as a weakness.”
Mr Peters was particularly interested in how other police tried to prevent it, what programmes had been implemented to combat stress and the success of these programmes.
One hundred individuals, all men, from both the management and regular police levels were interviewed in a number of police forces in the USA and England.
Mr Peters found that in general the same factors cause stress worldwide with only a few factors being specific to a region. He explained that policeman experience two types of stress. Short term or acute stress is brought on by passing events such as an outbreak of terrorism and police generally recover from this. Long term or chronic stress is of more concern and affects about 10 per cent of police. The main causes of this stress are:
•Individuals distrust of their superiors.
•Mistrust of politicians.
•A general mistrust by the public of police and a fear of being investigated because of the bias towards the public in such investigations.
•Unfulfilled promises especially with regard to promotions.
•Shiftwork.
•Work overload.
•Pay and conditions – as high as 50 per cent of police overseas have second jobs and Mr Peters feels it may be the same here.
Stress caused by these factors is most commonly evidenced by obesity, alcohol or other drug abuse, coronary disease and gastric disorders. Perhaps one of the most important causes of stress can be related to morale between management and the police.
The table below shows the assessments made out of tem on morale.
America England
Management 7 7
Policemen 2 6
As can been seen there is a good level of moral between management and police in England and a poor level of morale between these two groups in America.
This was found to be the main reason for few workers compensation cases arising as a result of stress and a much lower incidence of alcoholism in England compared to the USA. A unique factor which did cause stress for police in England was the restriction that prevents them carrying appointments (guns).
Some of the other causes of stress have been addressed overseas. For example in Huston all junior police officers work night shift exclusively for two years, then they work afternoon shift for two years and then go onto the day shift until they are promoted at which time they restart this cycle. This has been found to reduce stress.
In the area of conditions overseas police are offered good retirement benefits after 20 years which many police take advantage of. In NSW conditions associated with retirement after 20 years are poor and thus very few police take advantage of them.
Sometimes efforts which are made to overcome stress actually generate stress. This is the case in NSW where community based programmes have been promoted to improve the image of the police. Such programmes are a good idea but as they are very taxing from the point of view of job time and as no extra police have been appointed they create extra stress for already overworked police.
Mr Peters identified a number of programmes to deal with stress which were good in principal but were not communicated well and so were not functioning well. An example of this was the Lalulmi programme in the USA. This is a care group programme based on peer counselling. It is aimed at officers looking for stress in follow officers and offering support, however, it is not used enough because officers fear that confidences will later be used against them. Mr Peters feels this demonstrates a typical problem of the approach used by management in the USA. Specialists decide on how to approach stress without consulting the police who will be using these programmes and so police treat the programmes with mistrust. “It is important to recognise that stress is an individual problem which makes it difficult to have a simplistic prevention programme” he said.
Mr Rogers feels it is vert important to increase police morale and that this can be done by involving police in the decision making process especially in relation to determining methods of stress management and programmes.
Mr Peters has been with the University for the past 8 years, full time since 1980 but has resigned effective of October 13, 1986. Mr Peters now intends to devote his total energies to his full time practice but will continue his association with the University as he is a Standing Committee member on the Institute of Behavioural Science. Mr Peters stated that he has really enjoyed his attachment to the University as a tutor and would like to wish the University well in the future."
This image was scanned from a photograph in the University's historical photographic collection held by Cultural Collections at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
If you have any information about this photograph, or would like a higher resolution copy, please contact us.
Dr. Roger Peters, Newcastle psychologist
Source: livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/52918
This photo appeared in the News, Volume 12, Number 17, September 29 to October 13, 1986. The text was:
"Police stress investigated
Mr Roger Peters, a tutor in the Department of Psychology has just returned from an overseas investigation of police stress.
Mr Peters who has been studying and treating police stress in NSW was asked by the Police Commissioner to carry out this investigation. Mr Peters stated that “the Police Department now accepts stress as a physiological condition and a naturally occurring event where as it was previously seen as a weakness.”
Mr Peters was particularly interested in how other police tried to prevent it, what programmes had been implemented to combat stress and the success of these programmes.
One hundred individuals, all men, from both the management and regular police levels were interviewed in a number of police forces in the USA and England.
Mr Peters found that in general the same factors cause stress worldwide with only a few factors being specific to a region. He explained that policeman experience two types of stress. Short term or acute stress is brought on by passing events such as an outbreak of terrorism and police generally recover from this. Long term or chronic stress is of more concern and affects about 10 per cent of police. The main causes of this stress are:
•Individuals distrust of their superiors.
•Mistrust of politicians.
•A general mistrust by the public of police and a fear of being investigated because of the bias towards the public in such investigations.
•Unfulfilled promises especially with regard to promotions.
•Shiftwork.
•Work overload.
•Pay and conditions – as high as 50 per cent of police overseas have second jobs and Mr Peters feels it may be the same here.
Stress caused by these factors is most commonly evidenced by obesity, alcohol or other drug abuse, coronary disease and gastric disorders. Perhaps one of the most important causes of stress can be related to morale between management and the police.
The table below shows the assessments made out of tem on morale.
America England
Management 7 7
Policemen 2 6
As can been seen there is a good level of moral between management and police in England and a poor level of morale between these two groups in America.
This was found to be the main reason for few workers compensation cases arising as a result of stress and a much lower incidence of alcoholism in England compared to the USA. A unique factor which did cause stress for police in England was the restriction that prevents them carrying appointments (guns).
Some of the other causes of stress have been addressed overseas. For example in Huston all junior police officers work night shift exclusively for two years, then they work afternoon shift for two years and then go onto the day shift until they are promoted at which time they restart this cycle. This has been found to reduce stress.
In the area of conditions overseas police are offered good retirement benefits after 20 years which many police take advantage of. In NSW conditions associated with retirement after 20 years are poor and thus very few police take advantage of them.
Sometimes efforts which are made to overcome stress actually generate stress. This is the case in NSW where community based programmes have been promoted to improve the image of the police. Such programmes are a good idea but as they are very taxing from the point of view of job time and as no extra police have been appointed they create extra stress for already overworked police.
Mr Peters identified a number of programmes to deal with stress which were good in principal but were not communicated well and so were not functioning well. An example of this was the Lalulmi programme in the USA. This is a care group programme based on peer counselling. It is aimed at officers looking for stress in follow officers and offering support, however, it is not used enough because officers fear that confidences will later be used against them. Mr Peters feels this demonstrates a typical problem of the approach used by management in the USA. Specialists decide on how to approach stress without consulting the police who will be using these programmes and so police treat the programmes with mistrust. “It is important to recognise that stress is an individual problem which makes it difficult to have a simplistic prevention programme” he said.
Mr Rogers feels it is vert important to increase police morale and that this can be done by involving police in the decision making process especially in relation to determining methods of stress management and programmes.
Mr Peters has been with the University for the past 8 years, full time since 1980 but has resigned effective of October 13, 1986. Mr Peters now intends to devote his total energies to his full time practice but will continue his association with the University as he is a Standing Committee member on the Institute of Behavioural Science. Mr Peters stated that he has really enjoyed his attachment to the University as a tutor and would like to wish the University well in the future."
This image was scanned from a photograph in the University's historical photographic collection held by Cultural Collections at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
If you have any information about this photograph, or would like a higher resolution copy, please contact us.