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This study investigates the relationship between stressors that are part of law enforcement job responsibilities or associated with police work and the relationships of law enforcement officers. This study uses a standardized testing instrument for relationships, the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R) (Snyder, 1997) and a qualitative tool developed by the researcher, the Law Enforcement-Based Family Survey (LEBFS). The MSI-R is a self-report measure that identifies for each partner the nature and the extent of the distress along key dimensions of the relationship. The LEBFS examines themes among law enforcement officers and is used as an exploratory measure. Participants for the study were chosen based on their active duty status and personal relationships, utilizing a sampling procedure. The Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles, California, employed the law enforcement officers for this study, and participation was voluntary and confidential.

School resource officers (SROs) are sworn law enforcement who are responsible for providing security and crime prevention services in the American school environment. SROs have become commonplace in American schools, but support for their continued work is meeting more resistance from those who feel that schools need to be focused on education and not police actions. The responsibilities of SROs are similar to regular police officers in that they have the ability to make arrests, respond to calls for service, and document incidents that occur within their jurisdiction. They are expected to be more than a law enforcement officer; they are expected to be leaders, educate students about law-related topics; be a role model to youth; and typically have additional duties to include mentoring and conducting presentations on youth-related issues. SRO programs receive valuable augmented training from a partner in school safety, the non-profit organization – National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO). Towards this end, we will: (1) provide a historical context of SRO programs in the United States, (2) highlight concerns and challenges of school communities, (3) briefly present the case of SRO in Los Angeles, and (4) highlight implications for educational leadership. Conclusions and recommendations are presented.

In this paper I reflected on managing my emotions during a study I conducted of the police in Brussels which consisted mainly in observation. Emotions became problematic because on the one hand, I tried to restrict my observer’s role and did not wish to intervene in the work of those I observed. On the other hand, within my family, friends, or colleagues the issue of police practices sparked emotionally tense discussions because of negative experiences some of them had had with the police. How could I maintain a distance from all the emotion “in” the field and “out” of the field? How could I manage this uncomfortable situation? This paper is based on material from an observation carried out between October 2010 and November 2011 in the context of my doctoral thesis: Police Officers and Youth: the Social Organization of Interactions in Public Space. This paper will not address questions about police officers because the focus is my research experience while remaining relatively involved in my daily social life as a young mixed-race woman in her thirties. I realized that fieldwork consists in a learning-by-doing process and that I had to abandon my confidence in the positivistic ideal of the rational and distant observer who has a full control over herself in the situation under study. The researcher’s challenge is to use her emotions knowingly.

Examining the historical evolution of public protest and the police response, primarily in the United States since the 1960s informs strategies and tactics on more recent responses to protest. Case study examination and analysis can aid police and civic leaders in crafting a cohesive strategy to address civil unrest within their jurisdictions. Specifically examining case studies involving the Occupy Movement of 2011 and the resultant civil unrest following the death of Freddie Gray in the City of Baltimore will aid in understanding potential benefits of a more integrated response to civil unrest that would include emergency management as a contributory to the possible solution.

This chapter examines the connections between systemic police terror, solidarity, collective consciousness, emotion work, and negative health outcomes for black Americans. While much social science and criminological research has focused on police brutality and the black male without much consideration of the collective effects of police violence on communities of color, we shift the conversation from brutality to systemic terror by incorporating the cumulative and collective effects policing has on communities of color, beyond those directly victimized via interactions with the police. In this chapter, we introduce and theorize about the deeper connections between policing, black communities, and emotional labor and the relationship(s) these factors have on negative health outcomes.