Burnout,Coping, Stress of Conscience and Psychosocial Work Environment among Patrolling Police Officers

Police personnel work under different circumstances in various environments involving stressful situations which can increase the risk of burnout. Aim of this study was to investigate the association between burnout (emotional exhaustion, EE vs. depersonalization, DP) and psychosocial work environment, stress of conscience as well as coping strategies among patrolling police officers in Sweden. Most of the independent variables; psychological demand, decision latitude, social support, and coping scales were correlated with EE and DP. A hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the predictive impact of; psychological demand, decision latitude, social support, coping strategies and stress of conscience. Findings revealed that risk of EE increased with a troubled conscience for both women and men when coping strategies were added to the model. For men risk of DP increased with troubled conscience. Only low decision latitude was associated with risk of DP for women when coping strategies were added to the model. Results from this study indicate that stress of conscience has to be taken into consideration and also levels of social support and decision latitude when studying the influence of the psychosocial work environment on burnout.     

Why are some ethnic groups more violent than others? The role of friendship network's ethnic composition

Ethnic differences in violent behavior can be found in official crime statistics, as well as in surveys on juvenile delinquency. To explain these differences, research mainly focuses on factors like parental violence, violence legitimizing norms of masculinity, or socio-economic status. Little research has examined the role of friendship network's ethnic composition on ethnic differences in violent behavior, although different sociological and criminological theories suggest that the composition of friendship networks can play an important role for attitudes and behavior of its members. Using data of a survey conducted in 2006 among all ninth-grade pupils in Hanover (Germany), we investigated the influence of friendship network's ethnic composition on violent behavior in general, and on ethnic differences in violent behavior in particular. Due to the specific sampling procedure, it was also possible to look for neighborhood effects both on (ethnic differences in) juvenile delinquency and friendship network composition. Findings indicate that there are significant differences in the network composition across the ethnic groups. After controlling for these network characteristics, ethnic differences in violent behavior disappeared. Furthermore, the results show that the friendship network's ethnic composition also depends on community characteristics.