Citation

Smith B. Collision 2009; 4(2): 64-71.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Members of an accident reconstruction squad deal with death and all its related evidence on a regular basis. However, little research has been done on the psychological impact of this exposure to death on individual officers or their occupational culture. This paper highlights some of the issues that police officers, and in particular accident reconstructionists, may encounter when confronting death in the course of their professional work. Each police officer can be pushed beyond the limit of his psychological experience and endurance to a point where he becomes overwhelmed. In certain areas of policing, officers are required to create a level of professional numbing or emotional distancing that enables them to deal with a series of deaths. It is important that police departments acknowledge that investigating death is a unique psychological environment, which requires a special set of rules and procedures for admittance, as well as intermittent testing to maintain the psychological fitness of its employees. In addition, officers should be trained to recognize, in themselves and in their colleagues, the signs and symptoms that these psychological issues may present.