Psychology On A Budget

COPJOBS TM

PSYCHOLOGY ON A BUDGET

By Rex T. Finnegan, Ed.D. & Ron Thrasher, Ph.D.

Reprinted from the April 1998 issue of Copjobs magazine

No right of passage equals that of becoming a police officer. However, the police family is growing. Today's twenty year officers remember calling the local minister to "take care" of a surviving family in crisis. Gradually agencies recognized the value of this professional service and developed police chaplain programs. In this tradition, police psychologists now assist police agencies with a wide range of professional services.

In the beginning psychologists worked with large departments in areas such as officer involved shooting, excessive force complaints, critical incidents, and officer burnout. Today, large departments employ psychologists either as full time staff or as consultants under contract. Responsibilities are growing. Psychologists now become involved with hostage negotiations, critical incident debriefing, stress management, academy training and a wide variety of needs.

Still most departments, because of size or budget, lack the benefits of a police psychologist. Administrators ask how a department of fifty officers, for example, can afford such a "necessary luxury" except in extreme situations. The answer lies in developing a part time psychologist in a quid pro quo arrangement. In this agreement the psychologist gets as much as he/she gives. Everybody wins. The process begins with selecting and "grooming" the psychologist. An individual must be found with a developing interest in police work, police psychology, or forensic psychology. Sources include (active or retired) psychologists in private practice, clinics, university psychology departments, or counseling services.

Generally, the department pays for things such as fitness evaluations, individual counseling/therapy sessions and department workshops. The psychologists volunteer other services such as suspect profiling, crime scene analysis, hostage negotiations and administrative consultations on personnel matters/concerns. The question remains, what would motivate a psychologist for such assistance.

Policing provides a variety of non-salaried benefits to the psychologist. Training allows interesting opportunities not available in the private sector yet applicable to private practice. For example hostage negotiations and criminal profiling add to a psychologist's skill in conflict resolution and psychodiagnosis. The work provides the professional with a unique avenue for community service. Also, by virtue of the academic or private administrative systems in which many psychologist work, there is little positive feedback. Police work provides the professional with strong reinforcement for good work; something often lacking in their other employ. Finally, Growing with a police department can provide the psychologists an easy transition from full time employment to part time retirement when the time comes.

The police-psychologists relationship begins and develops just as any relationship. It starts with initial contacts, perhaps as a department's request or psychologist's offer) for in-service training. In this way, both parties can "check each other out" for a goodness of fit. Next in the relationship sequence, the department may increase may increase the contact for such things as individual work with officers involved in trauma or burnout. As the relationship develops, training can be provided to the psychologists in specialty areas like profiling and negotiations. The exchange of benefits to both parties becomes limited only by enthusiasm and creativity. By developing a "tracking history" police administrators might even justify psychological assistance in future budget appropriations.

Departments might interest and sponsor the psychologist in attending the state's police academy. This allows the psychologist to become a reserve officer; hence formalizing the relationship and greatly increasing the psychologist' credibility with officers with whom he/she may provide future psychological assistance.

For such a program to work, a police department must be pro-active, officer and community oriented and flexible in its approach to problems. The psychologist must possess a developing interest in the law enforcement field and be willing to give of themselves in order to make a difference in their community. Like any relationship, it takes work. Together everybody wins.