Chapter 11 The Emotion Work of Police

Abstract

Law enforcement is a stressful profession. Police officers are faced with emotionally exhausting events on a daily basis and are required to control negative emotions in an effort to conduct their jobs effectively. This chapter explores the emotions experienced by police officers and seeks to understand the emotional labor of this profession. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with police officers to garner information about the role of emotional expression and suppression on the job. The results revealed several themes, such as the importance of anger to the job of police officer and the emotional climate within the police force. Understanding emotion work and the management of emotions among law enforcement officers is an important contribution to improving the well-being and performance of police officers. Our research results call for further exploration of the role of emotions in law enforcement.

Citation

Daus, C.S. and Brown, S. (2012), "Chapter 11 The Emotion Work of Police", Ashkanasy, N.M., Härtel, C.E.J. and Zerbe, W.J. (Ed.) Experiencing and Managing Emotions in the Workplace (Research on Emotion in Organizations, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 305-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1746-9791(2012)0000008016