“Risk It Out,Risk It Out”: Occupational and Organizational Stresses in Rural Policing

Rural and Remote Policing

The fact that the majority of policing research has been concentrated in urban centers (Weisheit, Falcone, & Wells, 1994) hinders knowledge production on how structural and cultural aspects of rurality shape policing and the unique risks rural officers encounter (Oliver, 2004; Oliver & Meier, 2009). Rural, remote, and Northern regions are distinctive in their geography (e.g., terrain, size), isolation, and sparse population yet are not homogenous in nature: Some jurisdictions (e.g., small-boat fisheries communities) experience economic and population decline, and others (e.g., large-scale industrial resource extraction projects) are experiencing somewhat of an economic boom (Smith, 2010). Each community sits within a distinctive larger sociopolitical context that shapes both the kinds of work available and the conditions under which that work is carried out, with implications for occupational health and safety. Thus, policing in said areas varies with the specifics of the location, population needs, and the greater context—from economic conditions to accessible resources (Weisheit, Falcone, & Wells, 2005; Yarwood, 2015).

Further creating new policing “challenges,” some remote areas can be accessible by air or boat exclusively, others require the use of snow vehicles, and all have distinctive cultural underpinnings often rooted in the geographic landscape and localized history (Weisheit et al., 2005). As such, nuanced risk exists as road conditions may be poor or nonexistent, communication technology may have impaired functionality, and response times for police service provision can be lengthy and costly. Thus, policing must be redefined to meet population and geographic demands (Bristow, 1982; Weisheit et al., 1994). This includes addressing the greater availability and ownership of guns, the diversities in criminal activities, the specific social climate, and the presence of poverty (Bell, 1989; R. Davis & Potter, 1991; Weisheit et al., 1994). Given that rurality is shaped by a cultural context of familiarity (e.g., citizens know one another) and a sense of community and belonging (Jobes, 2003; Wooff, 2015), rural police tend to live in proximity to the neighborhoods they patrol, are familiar with local communities, and develop strong bonds with the population over time (Osgood & Chambers, 2003).

Rural and remote policing, then, engenders a multitude of diverse challenges for police including feelings of isolation exacerbated by poor access to communication infrastructure like Internet and cell phone coverage. The roles of police officers tend to be more variable where some may feel they are serving as agents of law enforcement at one moment and as social workers or peace keepers the next (Huey & Ricciardelli, 2015; Pelfrey, 2007; Wooff, 2015). In some communities, a police department may include only two members and these members tend to perform functions that would be performed by different professionals in urban areas, often a response to the absence of social or other emergency service providers (Weisheit et al., 1994).

Organization Stresses: Understaffing and Lack of Material Resources

Internationally, scholars document a need for more police officers and equipment across diverse police services (Sinha, 1981; Verimliliklerinin, İle Ölçülmesi, Ülkemen, & Gültekin); however, such studies tend to focus on large police agencies or urban policing rather than small detachments in rural and remote areas (Wilson & Heinonen, 2011). Although police staffing and the management of officers is gaining traction as a major topic at police association meetings (Wilson & Grammich, 2009), it remains an overlooked and under-prioritized aspect of police administration (Hollis & Wilson, 2015; Wilson & Heinonen, 2011). Researchers studying staffing challenges tend to focus on recruitment, retention, and attrition (Egan, 2005; Jordan, Fridell, Faggiani, & Kubu, 2009; Scrivner, 2006; Spielman, 2009; Tulgan, 2000). Internationally, staffing challenges have been attributed to retiring baby-boomers (Spielman, 2009), less interest in the profession (Scrivner, 2006), and fewer resources (Wilson, 2012; Wilson & Weiss, 2014). These factors are compounded by the increasing demand for officers due to the expanding police role—a consequence of globalization, specialized task forces, and the adoption of new policing models among other factors (L. M. Davis et al., 2010; Hickman & Reaves, 2003; Kraska, 2007). Much effort has been invested in aligning staffing levels with diverse performance benchmarks (Srinivasan, Sorrell, Brooks, Edwards, & McDougle, 2013), particularly in response to budget reductions and hiring freezes (Hollis & Wilson, 2015; Johnson & Jackson, 2011; Police Executive Research Forum, 2010).

Staffing in policing organizations is determined by one or a combination of the following different approaches: per-capita ratios, minimum staffing projections, authorized levels, or workload-need approximation models (Wilson & Weiss, 2014). Per-capita models determine policing needs by the number of residents (Orrick, 2008). This model fails to account for a variety of considerations including the size of the service area, physical assess barriers, and the non-crime-related functions police perform (Wilson & Weiss, 2014)—which are all notable challenges tied to policing in rural and remote areas. The minimum staffing model assigns officers through estimates of how many officers should be on patrol at one time to protect the public and maximize officer safety (Orrick, 2008). What, however, constitutes adequate protection of the public? Without objective standards to determine staffing levels, this approach can be problematic—particularly in rural areas where the distance that must be traveled to respond to a call must be considered alongside workload when setting minimum staffing levels (Wilson & Weiss, 2014). The authorized level approach uses resource availability, specifically budget allocation, to determine officer staffing (Wilson & Heinonen, 2011). Concerns arise, however, if the authorization level becomes confused with actual need especially if the number of staff is below the authorized level thus resulting in understaffing (Wilson & Weiss, 2014). The workload-based approach uses demand for service indicators to define staffing needs (Lumb, 1996; Orrick, 2008). Although there may be fewer service call in rural and remote communities, each call may take hours longer to respond to given the vast service area. Thus, unless multiple metrics are used to determine staffing levels, each will fall short (Fritsch, Liederbach, & Taylor, 2009).

Hollis and Wilson (2015), for example, looked at staffing levels across diverse communities in the United States, including what they refer to as “Mormon Outposts” and “Tractor Country,” both defined as rural, remote, and sparsely populated (p. 825). Each community has the lowest number of sworn officers per 1,000 citizens in the population, 2.51 and 2.85, respectively (see pp. 827–828). They found that staff levels vary across community characteristics, the relationship being complex, and as such they advise against using benchmarks to assess staffing needs and instead advocate for looking at police workload and performance objectives.

In the most comprehensive study of police workload, Duxbury and Higgins (2012) surveyed 25 police services across Canada, resulting in 7,091 completed survey responses, to learn about staff work experiences and work–life conflict. They found the need to deal with competing demands and understaffing were key stressors for the officers in their sample. In the former, 40% experienced work stress from multiple and competing demands that were intensified by unrealistic deadlines, the associated pressures, and the paramilitary structures that make saying “no” to said demands near impossible. In the latter, 40% were stressed by understaffing from officers on leave, secondments, and absentees not being replaced. A total of 54% reported not having enough staff available to fulfill their occupational requirements, 46% were unable to backfill staff on leave or fill positions in a timely manner, 37% did not have enough staff to allow officers to take breaks during work hours, 38% considered the work culture to be an impediment to help seeking, and 57% felt unable to say “no.”

Not surprisingly, Duxbury and Higgins (2012) found high levels of absenteeism, where two thirds of their police respondents were absent at least once in the 6 months that preceded their survey participation. These officers missed 7 days of work over a 6-month period because of health problems (51%), mental or emotional fatigue (28%), or childcare-related issues (27%). Officers reported working on average 44 hours per week, with 78% working more than 45 hours weekly, and 64% taking their work home because they were unable to satisfy their work demands on duty. In light of their findings, Duxbury and Higgins (2012) argue that “doing more with less” results in higher levels of officer stress. Thus, despite what model is used to determine optimal staffing ratios, particularly in combination with the ever-rising costs of policing often tied to salaries (Duxbury, Higgins, & Halinski, 2015), understaffing remains a documented significant organizational stressor for police internationally (Houdmont, 2013).

Policing as a High-Risk and High-Stress Occupation

Role overload is “a type of role conflict that results from excessive demands on the time and energy supply of an individual such that satisfactory performance is improbable” (Duxbury & Higgins, 2012, p. 56). Duxbury and Higgins (2001), operationalize three types of role overload: (a) work-role overload, referring to when “total demands on time and energy associated with the prescribed activities of their work-roles are too great to perform the roles adequately or comfortably” (p. 56); (b) family role overload, which represents the family-equivalent to work-role overload (i.e., when family demands exceed time and resources); and (c) total role overload, when collective demands overwhelm time and energy resources such that it is impossible for an individual to satisfy their various role requirements to anyone else’s satisfaction. Our focus, work-role overload, was first conceptualized by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal (1964) and later used to provide insight into police officer stress (Kop et al., 1999). Work-role overload, although not synonymous with work stress, acts as an antecedent to stress, for example, meeting work demands within time restrictions can fuel pressures that increase occupational stress (Coverman, 1989; Duxbury et al., 2015; Kop et al., 1999). Work-role overload, then, has two associated dimensions: (a) work demands overwhelm an employee’s available work time and (b) work demands are unrelenting. Despite the many studies conducted on police officer stress and the association between ever-changing work demands and such stress (Baehler & Bryson, 2008, 2009), most researchers agree that the concept of work-role overload has been largely ignored in the study of police officers and services, particularly in a rural and remote policing context (see Duxbury et al., 2015).

Duxbury and Higgins (2001), for example, compared survey results from a 1991 sample of police officers to their smaller 2001 sample to evidence the extent of role overload among urban police. They found a decrease in employee health (not attributable to age) and an increase in role overload, specifically the average hours worked by those in their sample increased from 38 (1991 officers) to 43 (2001 officers) hours per week, and the percent of officers who brought their work home also increased 20% over the same time period. In a later study, Duxbury and Higgins (2012) found that officers experience a “time crunch” at both their work and home, yet 80% reported that their work demands are always high while family demands were more variable. Outcomes from such demands include stress, depression, and interference in work or family activities and needs. Although researchers tie officer stress to staffing challenges, Duxbury et al. (2015), to my knowledge, are the first in the policing literature to link staffing issues to stress in the context of work-role overload.

Current Study

There is a known and undeniable risk inherent to the policing occupation. Risk changes shape in rural and remote areas, where policing is strained by the terrain, isolation, and vast area officers service as well as incremental weather and physical obstacles. Drawing from Cox et al.’s (2010) transactional theory as informed by Houdmont (2016), I operationalize work-related stress to include the dynamic relationship between (a) antecedent factors or psychosocial hazards such as occupational experiences that negatively impact psychological, physical, or social well-being; (b) cognitive perceptual processes (i.e., differing sources of emotional stress experiences imbued in risk knowledges); and (c) individual (i.e., negative health outcomes) and organizational (e.g., low moral) content. Transaction here is used to suggest “stress is neither in the environment input nor in the person, but reflects the conjunction of a person with certain motives and beliefs with an environment whose characteristics pose harm, threat or challenges depending on these personal characteristics” (Lazarus, 1990, p. 3). Drawing on data from focus groups with police officers employed in rural and remote detachments, I incorporate their subjective perceptions of work experiences to present how police officers understand their occupational realities, define its inherent risk and, thus, sources of stress. Duxbury and Higgins (2009) concept of role overload is employed to complement this transactional understanding of stress which, in essence, I argue results from organizational stressors that are exacerbated by the lack of efficient human and material resources among police.

In 2012, Duxbury and Higgins found that key stressors facing Canadian police officers include the need to deal with competing demands and understaffing. Although their sample was well distributed in terms of community size, it had little representation of rural and remote police service employees and staff from the Canadian Maritime (3%) or Northern (1%) provinces. I develop their findings here by adding two new dimensions—a qualitative emergent theme analyses and the experiences of rural and remote police officers from Eastern and Atlantic Canada. I first examine how officers working in rural, remote, or Northern areas interpret and experience risk, and if said risks are operational or organizational in nature. I explore how the key stressors officers highlight, organizational or operational, are tied to inadequate human and material resources, and then present an understanding of officer risk knowledges that extends across diverse forms of vulnerabilities: legal, administrative, physical, and emotional or personal.

Method

Between 2013 and 2015, 14 focus groups were conducted with officers (n = 49) across rank. All participants were currently working at a detachment in a rural, remote, Northern or Indigenous community. As such, the occupational roles of these officers extend well beyond law enforcement and often can be understood as “generalist” as they take on roles often referred to other agencies in urban centers or larger cities (see Huey & Ricciardelli, 2015 for more information about police roles in rural postings). The areas covered by each detachment ranged but could be larger than 2,200 km². Thus, to overcome the challenge of distance between officers, focus groups were conducted at three different multiday meetings or training sessions held in the province’s capital city. Officers attending a meeting or training session would fly or drive to the capital city and, during allocated time within the multiday events, were invited to participate in a focus group discussion. All participation was voluntary. Nearly all participants in the study were not posted in their home community (i.e., most were “outsiders”). ¹ Participants ranged from 24 to 52 years, were employed full-time within the same province, and over 90% self-identified as White and others as Indigenous (e.g., Mi’kmaq). The sample includes 8 female (25%) and 36 (75%) male officers, and one participant opted to not self-report gender.

Semistructured, in-depth, focus group discussions were conducted each lasting slightly over 1 hour. The focus groups took place in private meeting rooms with only one researcher or moderator present. Each group was composed of three to five participants, on average, and designed to generate data and insights through group interaction, specifically to facilitate conversation about participants’ experiences and perspectives that extends beyond their opinions or attitudes (Morgan, 1998). Having participants close in rank or position in focus groups (e.g., groups of Unit Commanders at the rank of Sergeants or Staff-Sergeants versus groups of Constables) helped to eliminate power differentials that could otherwise silence an officer within the paramilitary structure of policing organizations.

A guide of open-ended items was available and referenced; however, priority was given to topics that emerged organically in conversation. The general questions that guided the focus groups covered topics related to the general nature of police work in rural, remote, or Northern areas, their views of the policing occupation as well as community policing, experiences of occupational risk, and youth policing needs. Examples of specific questions include

How do you see your role in policing?; Do you think there is sufficient staffing and patrol deployment (human resources) of police officers to address youth crime?; What does community policing mean to you?; and Do you generally feel safe when doing your job?; What makes you feel unsafe in your occupation?

Although focus groups arguably impose a “minimum of artificiality of response,” they also “have a certain ecological validity not found in traditional survey research” (Stewart, Shamdasani, & Rook, 2007, p. 39). I used focus groups to unpack more hermeneutic factors and situate lived experiences (Girling, Loader, & Sparks, 2000; Stoutland, 2001). Although one-to-one interviews serve a similar purpose, group discussions are better for managing time constraints by minimizing the hours taken up by research during meetings and training sessions. Taking a partnered approach, the police service supported the opportunity to do research, and the researchers acknowledged the greater needs of the police service.

Sessions were conducted in English, voice recorded, and transcribed. Transcripts were thematically coded using a constructed grounded theory approach; driven by data while remaining attentive to existing theory (Charmaz, 2006). Central themes involved multiple respondents describing similar experiences or interpretations of a topic, and major recurrent themes were found across participants’ statements. NVivo software was relied upon when grouping the officers’ perceptions, attitudes, and experiences on each topic—using parent and child nodes—as per axial coding, and the shared qualities of responses were grouped (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Although only emergent themes are presented in the results, participants are quoted in isolation to avoid repetition within and across groups and pseudonyms are used for people and locations. Speech filler has been removed in all direct quotes and grammatical edits are minimal, only made when necessary for comprehension. Consistent with all qualitative research, any generalization of findings must be done with caution because of the arrays of communities, each with their own cultures and practices, within which officers work.

Results

The risk is there, it’s always going to be there. You can’t say you’re going to go to a place and there’s not going to be any risk … . I never go to work thinking that I’m going to be home tonight, I don’t know. (Mitch)

The pervasiveness of “risk” shapes policing experiences in rural and urban areas. To understand and operationalize this “risk,” or a lack of safety, for police working in rural and remote posts, I first examine the sources of risk officers identified. Emergent themes show that some risks are operational and thus unavoidable, like that of responding to a call for service, while others, such as organizational risks, are described as preventable. Organizational risks include being at risk because of inadequate human resources (e.g., being understaffed), lengthy waits for backup, and inadequate material resources (e.g., vehicles or weapons in poor working order).

Avoidable Risk: Material resource constraints

There’s a whole resourcing issue here that, I don’t know, it’s like the elephant in the room and I’m going to put it out because it is the elephant room. (Darwin)

Strained material resources for police in rural areas was a concern for many officers and exacerbated work-role overload and the resulting stresses. The problem was twofold, either technology being unusable or resources insufficient. Members face technological challenges that hinder the use of available resources. For example, members lacked any cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity in some areas inhibiting their ability to call for backup or use mobile work stations (i.e., car computers). The cold temperatures often require police to leave their vehicles idle (i.e., the car cannot restart if turned off when temperatures are too cold) and the large serve areas means mileage climbs quickly, all sources of strain for vehicles. Some detachments depend on snow vehicles (quads, etc.), boats, planes, and helicopters to respond to calls for service. Collectively, material expenses for policing in rural, Northern, and remote areas are high despite the smaller population. The costs of policing escalate quickly, front-line officers and supervisors are aware of how money is spent and the associated cuts that they feel impair their day-to-day safety. For example:

I think every one of us here would love to have more resources but that’s so far beyond, that’s not going to happen. We’ve got a shrinking population and in rural [location] the violence rate is going down, we’re not getting more resources. (Ryan)

Strained material resources, combined with the aforementioned human resources, negatively affects officer well-being. Officers felt that personally becoming or seeing others become “calloused or hardened,” was in essence a “defense mechanism because we see horrible stuff all the time” and exacerbated by resource strains that left many feeling undervalued and unappreciated. Their feelings that are only intensified with public criticism. Indeed, the common theme here was that officers were always to “Risk it out, risk it out,” and strained resources only added to work and time demands.

Discussion/Conclusions

Police officers working in rural, remote, and Northern areas navigate operational and organizational risks that range from the inability to call for backup where cellular reception is absent to vast distances to travel to arrive at service calls that must be interpreted in relation to place and space. Both types of risks, avoidable or unavoidable, are contextualized within the occupational space of rurality—a space that is neither inherently negative nor positive, just structured differently than the more compact and accessible urban landscape. In this article, I investigate how strained human and material resources—two elements of organizational not operational stress—are the main influencing factors impacting police officer experiences of work-role overload (Duxbury & Higgins, 2009; Shirom, Gilboa, Fried, & Cooper, 2008).

Participants understand operational risk as an inherent part of the job but see organizational risks as derivatives of their conditions of work (e.g., being understaffed, compromised equipment) that are largely preventable. Simply said, rural and remote policing is described as involving many occupational practices (e.g., driving long distances, waiting hours for backup) that would be rarely demanded of urban police. Such time-consuming practices, police often feel, undermine their ability to do their work safely and effectively which results in greater work-role strain and officer distress. For example, being understaffed or lacking material resources leaves officers, at times, isolated and alone when trying to respond with efficacy to community needs.

Although a seemingly obvious policy recommendation would be to increase staffing, financial constraints exist, said another way, if the resources were available to increase staffing and replace equipment such concerns would likely not be such a pronounced issue. Thus, a more plausible suggestion is to reevaluate working conditions, particularly those unique to rural, remote, and Northern policing, and explore innovative ways for officers to balance the multifold work demands they face. In such communities, this may include increased reliance on civilian community members or other such strategies that are culturally and contextually informed and shaped. Suggested here are context-specific strategies that serve to minimize legal, administrative, and operational vulnerabilities. There is also a need for greater work–life balance for officers, which could be accomplished through policy that prioritizes regular time off, vacation, and other leaves. However, to be effective, policy also needs to address back-filling the positions of officers on leave or the psychological burden officers may endure when taking any time of leave will continue. Recognizing the potentiality for officers to experience guilt, work-role overload, isolation, and stress, policy that ensures officers have access to and encourages (even mandates) the use of mental health and wellness services in a preventative as well as reactive manner is a more feasible recommendation.

Like Duxbury and Higgins (2012) found in their sample of Canadian police officers, study participants consistently noted key stressors that include the need to deal with competing demands and understaffing. Future researchers, I suggest, should sample more female officers working in rural areas to explore discrepancies in work-role overload or experience by gender (and rank). The current study was limited by the relatively small number of female participants, thus questions such as “Are female officers more likely than male officers to wait for back-up or vice versa?” could not be answered. Moreover, investigation is needed into if rural officers are more or less prone to fatigue or stress given, as Vila, Morrison and Kenney (2002) found, working long hours, shift work, and job stress, as well as schedule distribution, are all related to fatigue due to lack of sleep—an important causal factor in work-related injury and death for officers (see also Vila, 2006). For rural police, do the inadequate human resources tied to understaffing, or the potential for officers to become fatigued in light of the long hours worked, signify an increased potentiality for occupational injury, particularly given they are likely to be driving vast distances in poor conditions to respond to calls? ²

A final study limitation is tied to the fact that how officers assess risk was only discussed informally. Further researchers may wish to examine the risk assessment guidelines within police service organization, including how officers operate within such guidelines—where they do exist (e.g., in use of force situations).

Overall, participants reveal that risk in rural policing is primarily understood as a lack of safety shaped by physical, administrative, legal, and emotional aspects of their occupational role. Specifically, the effects of feeling understaffed and without resources means officers are left to manage physical risks in actual isolation (e.g., working alone) and organization isolation (e.g., feeling uncared about and undervalued). Officers report administrative tensions tied to scheduling demands (e.g., too few staff to cover shifts) and that they bear the legal responsibilities if problems arise from running a detachment understaffed. Constrained policing conditions leave officers with very little downtime which impacts their emotional and mental health, relationships at or outside work, and can lead to stress leave. Said outcomes do little but place even greater demands on remaining staff intensifying work-role overload for those left to do their job.