Understandability
Kurtz (2006), in his article, discusses various causes of stress among police officers. In the article, he outlines the results of extreme stress both in the short term and in the long run. His article Articulates the issues and tortures that police officers find unbearable. And those that cause them psychological trauma. It was a difficult time trying to understand the results of his findings the issues that he raises. It requires the reader to apply a high level of critical thinking.
Kurtz shows bias from the beginning of his article, stating, “For women, the presence of gender-related jokes significantly affected stress levels, but the perception of leniency for female officers did not have an effect. For men, both gendered jokes and the perception of leniency toward women were associated with increases in stress” (Kurtz, 2006). As the article progresses, an element of race appears, and towards the end of his findings, Kurtz skews his direction towards particular results from the Baltimore Police Department. Results of the research confirm that there is a stress burnout correlation among both genders, male and female.
Kurtz cites several areas of interest in regards to causes of stress and burnout among them, work-related issues such as colleague’s death in the line of duty, lacking family support, internal investigations in the departments, and violent arrests. The stressful locations in his results do not appear to affect a single-gender, but rather all police officers.
For this report to be adopted by police executives, I would recommend unbiased information. Kurtz should focus majorly on the psychosocial factors, explain what causes the psychosocial stress among the officers, and give examples. I would further recommend that Kurtz expands his research sources and use resources that expound his research question.