Many researchers have found that officers’ perceptions of organizational stressors far outweigh operational stressors on the job, and these have been linked to a variety of adverse outcomes including poor health, quality of life, and performance as well as psychological distress and sleep problems. However, there is no broad theory-based, conceptual framework to link organizational stress, moderator variables, and outcomes. Less research attention has also been paid to mitigating the ill effects of stress on police and correctional officers or their employers. As such, we will also attempt to differentiate unique police and corrections officer stressors and identify individual and organizational mitigation strategies.

Among our anticipated outcomes will be a more comprehensive, descriptive and causal model of organizational stress, stress moderators, and key outcomes delineating the role of organizational stress, coping, and social support in predicting key health, performance, and wellness outcomes. Mitigation strategies proposed by officers, their supervisors, and commanders that could be further tested is another key outcome. We will develop a number of deliverables and scholarly products including a final research report, an archived data set available for other researchers, scholarly articles for targeted scholarly audiences, practitioner-oriented articles for broad dissemination, presentations at both professional and research conferences, individual officer feedback reports, and agency-specific findings.