The Cost of Caring: Exploring the Experience of Compassion Fatigue among Law Enforcement

• In Event: Roundtable: Policing: Impacts on Officers, Families and Communities

Abstract

Law enforcement officers frequently respond to high-risk, high stress situations in the course of their normal job duties. This repetitive, intense exposure to traumas may produce lasting impacts on the officer. Notably, one's ability to effectively cope may manifest as compassion fatigue; a reduced capacity or interest in being empathic resulting from the traumatic events that another human suffered (Figley, 1995). The experience of compassion fatigue can result in a host of adverse consequences for the officer and the citizens they serve. This research investigates the consequences of repeated exposure to trauma and stress inherent in police work. Through the use of a standardized measure examining compassion fatigue/secondary trauma, compassion satisfaction and burnout, the experience of law enforcement officers is investigated. Implications of compassion fatigue, agency intervention and officer characteristics are investigated.

Authors

• Kathryn Kleis, University of New Haven

• Heath Grant, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY

• John DeCarlo, University of New Haven

• Cathryn Lavery, Iona College