police work, officers coping strategies, measures of mood and psychological functioning, and health status (Coman, 1990). This study confirmed that there are differences between the temperaments and behaviors of groups of police officers with different lengths of service. The differences were most obvious when the officers has served more than 12 years. These officers generally display Type A personality behaviors. The longer the officers were in service, the more distant, cynical, and suspicious they had become. As discussed earlier, this causes stress because the officers are relying solely on themselves for their sanity, they are not receiving any sort of comforting or reassurement to make the job a little easier and less stressful. Police work is more stressful than practically all other occupations, due to the fact that the stress comes from the dangers and repeated encounters with violent people and victims of violence (Conroy and Hess, 1992; Fell, et al. 1980; Reiser and Geiger, 1984). Police officers have been said to suffer high rates of alcoholism, divorce, and suicide as a result of job stress (Heiman, 1975; Maslach and Jackson, 1981; Nelson and Smith, 1970). A study done by Storch and Panzarella (1996) combined a standardized measure of stress with a questionnaire about job stressors, individual job and career variables, and personal variables. The most consistent among these stressors are organizational variables. Examples of organizational variables are personnel policies, relationships with superiors, and working conditions, as well as the public, media, and legal system. Organizational stressors in police work are lack of promotional opportunity and, actual promotion (Kroes, 1983). Data from the Storch and Panzarella (1996) study of police officers show the average levels of state anxiety and trait anxiety among police officers are not high (Kroes, 1983; Spielberger, 1983).The survey was done anony...
