Aubrey Roahrig
English 1109 M-W, at 10:30
11/16/20
Research Response Exercise
The profile I learned the most from was Policewoman Pat Hays on page 157. From the beginning she told us that her father used to abuse her so she became very timid and kept to herself. She seemed very desperate to get out of the house her father lived in and she married her high school sweetheart who she admits that she didn't actually want to marry. Since her husband did not have a job, she went out and got one at a near by hospital and when she would get paid her husband would always try and take her paycheck. Pat stood up for herself and kept her hard earned money, but this leads us to learn that she married someone just like her father, and he hit her for not giving him her money. After then her and her friend went out and took a chance on the policewoman test since it was a very new program being it was only 1966. Out of 1,000 women 219 made the cut and Pat was one of them. Pat came to her calling from pure chance and a quick decision. In the profile she says, "I worked the switchboard for a few more years. Then one day, when I was about twenty-four, my friend told me she was going to take the Chicago policewoman's exam ... And so I said, 'Well, I'll go with you and take it, too.'" (Isay 158). After that moment I learned from Pat that quick and not really well organized decisions don't always lead to terrible outcome, it can lead you to your passion.
On page 161 of Pat's profile she wrote about how the divorce rate of a law enforcement job was very high, and that coming home after arresting someone for rape then making dinner does not go well. So this paragraph where she wrote that made me question the mental illnesses within the police force. After researching this I found that most officers are struggling with a mental illness yet never seek out the help they need, to which agencies might start a mandatory screening of officers in the coming years. It is very apparent the police go through a lot of stress, which evidently can be taken out of civilians. Officers experience many kinds of stress including physical, psycho-social and anticipatory stress because of the kinds of traumatic calls they are responding to like child abuse, car crashes and homicides. "'Officers are exposed to traumatic calls for service
on a daily basis, including child abuse, domestic violence, car crashes
and homicides. Repeated exposure to these stressors and events may be
associated with development of mental illnesses, such as anxiety,
depression, somatization, [PTSD] and burnout'" said by Katelyn K. Jetelina, MPH, PhD.
These are statistics that the website had provided about the mental health of 434 officers.
Aubrey, thanks for getting us going here! I really enjoyed your post and the use of the statistics in your image drew me in. I think you rightly point out the incredible levels of stress involved in modern day policing. I think we have to really be aware of the many factors that influence our perceptions of the police and also the realities and fantasies we may have about their jobs and character and sense of duty. So much of what we think about police is from movies and TV and I'm not sure it's that accurate. Thanks for this post that made me think more!
ReplyDeleteHi Aubrey, I think the question you chose to do more research on was a great question and does reflect a lot on how they are treated and handled in the police force then and now. Something I also thought about was during Pats time how much harder it was to be a women in the force but also in comparison to today's women in the force. Like are they still treated like Pat was or how much change has been made since then.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mike about the picture you chose to use. Especially nowadays with everything going on it is really hard to be a cop. It is really hard being a cop and now you have to be 10 times more careful with what you do. I feel bad for the things that they have to go through in their jobs and the way they are treated. It is such a high percentage of officers with mental health problems.
ReplyDeleteHey Aubrey, I think nowadays it's hard being a cop. They need to be very cautious about what they do, I really enjoyed this profile though.
ReplyDelete