Depressed and Anxious: A Comparative Study of American and Czech Police Officers

• In Event: Comparative and Cross-National Comparisons in Policing and Corrections

Abstract

According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (2023), more than one in five or approximately 57.8 million U.S. adults live with a mental illness. Anxiety and depression are not uncommon among adults in the U.S. with 6.8 million experiencing general anxiety disorder (GAD) and 21 million having had a least one major depressive episode (NIMH, 2023). The Czech Republic has approximately 10.9 million inhabitants. According to the Association of Health Insurance Companies of the Czech Republic, about one in ten women and about six in a hundred men suffer from anxiety disorders or depression. According to psychiatrists, more than 700,000 people in the Czech Republic suffer from clinical depression requiring permanent psychiatric care and treatment (AHICCR, 2023). While mental illness is common in society, it is also not unusual for law enforcement officers to experience anxiety and depression given their stressful work conditions. This presentation will examine anxiety and depression amongst police officers across three police departments in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex compared to a sample of police officers from the Czech Republic.

Authors

• Tara O’Connor Shelley, Tarleton State University

• Tomáš Najman, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Lukáš Habich, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Jan Bajura, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Jiří Víšek, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Rhonda R. Dobbs, Tarleton State University

• David Dlouhý, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Tomáš Mráka, Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague

• Eva Illnerova, ECCE Prague