Five core areas that adversely affect police employees.

Last month, Brian Nanavaty, a Captain with the Indianapolis Police Department, wrote two articles about his police employee wellness program.  These articles, “Why Officers and Agencies Fail: A Case For Resiliency in Policing,” can be accessed from the Public Agency Training Council webpage. His on-going research and direct work with 300 police employees in his agency has allowed him to identify that there are five (5) core areas that adversely affect police employees.

These five areas are: (1) addictive issues; (2) behavioral health; (3) physical health; (4) personality issues; and (5) family relationships.

Some of the addictive issues are alcoholism, reliance on prescription medication (prescribed or not), gambling and sex/pornography.  There are things all law enforcement agencies can do even if they don’t have a wellness program like Brian’s.

Let’s take a moment and consider alcoholism.  This has been a continuous employee issue for all police agencies.  Usually we wait until something tragic happens like a traffic accident, being arrested for DUI, engaging in disruptive behavior in a public place, or domestic misconduct.  Other times it surfaces after some critical incident and the employee is ordered to submit to a chemical test.  Then it may result from a supervisor being alerted to the odor of alcohol on an employee’s breath when he/she comes to work.  These instances force us to take action and it usually is disciplinary action. 

We all know about substance abuse rehabilitation programs.  The problem, however, is that agencies aren’t proactive in their search for these valuable programs that can often salvage an employee.  Alcoholics Anonymous is one such program.  The biggest problem I see with these is the reluctance to have one of our officers go to a Chapter in our locale.  It thrusts the officer into a group with members of public he may have even taken enforcement action against.  Some larger police agencies have created their own Chapters that become exclusive for public safety employees.  There is no reason any area couldn’t create this type of Chapter that would provide services to a number of public safety agencies in an area of the state.  The only reason this hasn’t been done is that no one has taken up the issue and made it happen!

In this same addictive area is the use of substance abuse counselors.  Most all of them are certainly qualified.  But would it be helpful to have someone available who either knows or has made the effort to find out about police work.  I’ve seen several Last Chance Agreements where this has been inserted to ensure that “a law enforcement knowledgeable counselor” provides the professional services to the employee involved.  This is also the recommendation of the Police Psychologists Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.  If we’re going to send one of our employees to a substance abuse counselor, we must make certain s/he is the best qualified to help our employee.

Gambling addiction is becoming a more prevalent underlying cause for many instances of police misconduct.  These have taken the form of theft from the property/evidence room; mismanagement of union and police support funds; misappropriations from funds set up for slain officers; and theft during traffic stops and responses to calls for service.  Gambling can also result in overtime abuse, abuse of court appearances, and double dipping while working private details.

The real issue for all of us in law enforcement is not to wait for the tragic consequences these employee issues cause.  We should be proactive.  We should acknowledge that these may or will occur.  We should set up reasonable programs to give us some early alert to problems and then responsive, professional programs to assist those employees who get caught up in some of these disastrous consequences.