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Stress and Health in the Police: A Conceptual Framework

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Daniela Gutschmidt, Antonio Vera, Stress and Health in the Police: A Conceptual Framework, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice , Volume 15, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 1306–1315, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paaa070

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Previous studies have revealed high rates of health problems such as alcohol abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder, heart diseases, and suicidal behaviour in the police. Numerous variables in the context of police work that affect police officers’ health have already been identified. This includes, for example, operational and organizational stressors inherent in policing, prevailing coping styles, and subcultural characteristics. However, a theoretical model that provides a conceptual framework for the empirical findings is still lacking. The present article aims to close this gap by applying the general biopsychosocial model and the vulnerability-stress model on the impact of police stress on health. It starts by giving an overview of the concepts of vulnerability, stress, coping, and health. Based on a review of police stress research, several biological, psychological, and social factors that are particularly relevant in police work are presented. These aspects are then integrated into a conceptual framework.

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Home > ETDS > Dissertations and Theses > 4617

Dissertations and Theses

Police stress: a literature study on police occupational stressors and the responses in police officers to stressful job events.

Katarina Ahlstrom Mannheimer , Portland State University

Portland State University. Department of Administration of Justice

First Advisor

Gary L. Perlstein

Date of Publication

Document type, degree name.

Master of Science in Administration (MSA)

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Police -- Job stress

10.15760/etd.6501

Physical Description

1 online resource (2, vi, 98 p.)

The present paper is a literature study of stressors and the responses in police officers to occupational stressors. It endeavors to identify and assess common stressors in policing. It further aims to provide an answer to the question of whether police administrative tasks and situations, or the dangerous and traumatic events and situations inherent in policing, are perceived as equally or more stressful by surveyed police officers. The question is relevant as there seems to be disagreement among researchers on police stress about which elements (administrative or dangerous and/or traumatic) of the police occupation is more stressful. Much attention has been given to the treatment of post-traumatic stress in police officers while efforts to prevent administrative or organizational stressors have been largerly ignored. If administrative stressors in policing are equally important as dangerous and traumatic situations and events, more attention should be given to the prevention of such largerly preventable stressful events. The theoretical framework used in the study is that of the transactional concept of stress. In trying to assess what parts of policing are more stressful, a number of empirical studies were examined and compared. Most studies applied a "checklist" approach to identify and rank the heaviest stressors in police work. The methodological quality of available studies was varied, influencing their comparability and generalizability. In spite of these inequalities, the results from the assessment indicates that dangerous and traumatic situations are somewhat more often perceived as the largest stressors than administrative stressors in police work.

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

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https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/26711

Recommended Citation

Mannheimer, Katarina Ahlstrom, "Police Stress: A Literature Study on Police Occupational Stressors and the Responses in Police Officers to Stressful Job Events" (1993). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4617. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6501

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Burnout and stress measurement in police officers: literature review and a study with the operational police stress questionnaire.

• 1 Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
• 2 Psychology Unit of the Portuguese National Police, Lisbon, Portugal
• 3 Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS), Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
• 4 School of Health of the Polytechnic of Porto, Porto, Portugal
• 5 Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

Research has demonstrated that policing is a stressful occupation and that this stress has a negative impact on police officers’ mental and physical health, performance, and interactions with citizens. Mental health at the workplace has become a concern due to the costs of depression, anxiety, burnout, and even suicide, which is high among police officers. To ameliorate occupational health, it is therefore crucial to identify stress and burnout levels on a regular basis. However, the instruments frequently used to measure stress have not valorized the specificity of policing tasks. This study aims to: (i) conduct a literature review to identify questionnaires used to assess occupational stress and burnout among police officers; (ii) analyze the psychometric characteristics of a Portuguese version of Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op); and, using the PSQ-Op and other questionnaires, (iii) to identify operational stress, burnout, and distress levels among Portuguese police officers. The literature review identified 108 studies which use a multiplicity of questionnaires to measure burnout or occupational stress among police officers, but few studies use specific police stress questionnaires. Sample sizes were mostly below 500 participants and studies were mainly developed in the last decade in the USA and Brazil, but also in another 24 countries, showing the extent of the interest in this topic. This study applied to 2057 police officers from the National Portuguese Police, a force policing urban centers, and used the PSQ-Op, as well the Spanish Burnout Inventory and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. The results show that the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PSQ-Op are adequate. Factorial analysis revealed two dimensions defined as social and work issues, which were associated with measures of distress and burnout. Fit indices suggested a second-order solution called operational police stress. Overall, and considering the scale range of each questionnaire, the results showed moderate values of operational stress, distress, and burnout. However, considering their cut-off points, 85% of the sample presented high operational stress levels, 11% critical values for burnout, and 28% high distress levels, with 55% of the sample at risk of a psychological disorder. These results reinforce the need to prevent stress and to invest in police officers’ occupational health.

Introduction

According to recent systematic reviews, being a police officer seems to be a highly demanding and stressful occupation, due to the current characteristics of modern societies. For a police officer, those characteristics include: the uncertainty and danger related to the permanent threat of terrorist attacks, the increase of violence with firearms in urban areas, low human and material resources, team or supervision difficulties, criticism from citizens and society, and lack of understanding from family or friends ( Cumming et al., 1965 ; Webster, 2013 ; Magnavita et al., 2018 ; Purba and Demou, 2019 ). Numerous studies have tried to map police officers’ stress and its sources, a topic highlighted in the 1980s by the NIOSH technical report ( Hurrell et al., 1984 ), and in the 1990s by Norvell et al. (1993) , whose study focused on the influence of gender differences on law enforcement officers. Brown and Campbell (1994) , Violanti and Aron (1995) , and Stinchcomb (2004) also studied the sources of policing stress. However, this topic has attracted more interest in the last decade, with studies developed, for example, by Hickman et al. (2011) , Luceño-Moreno et al. (2016) , and Violanti et al. (2017) , all of whom continue to identify police officers’ stress sources and its negative impact on police officers’ health and job performance. More recently, Baldwin et al. (2019) , Wassermann et al. (2019) , and Ermasova et al. (2020) have contributed to the study of police officers’ stress and psychological/physical health. Related studies have focused more specifically on occupational stress (e.g., Agolla, 2009 ; Maran et al., 2015 ; Gutshall et al., 2017 ; Johnson et al., 2019 ), while others have investigated police officers’ burnout (e.g., Aguayo et al., 2017 ; Adams and Mastracci, 2019 ).

This has led to an increasing interest in police officers’ psychological well-being, with researchers emphasizing the negative impact of working with negative social situations, such as crime and death ( Henry, 2004 ), which can affect mental health and elicit physical fatigue, compassion fatigue, and even moral suffering ( Basinska and Wiciak, 2012 ; Papazoglou, 2016 ; Papazoglou et al., 2017 , 2020 ; Violanti et al., 2019 ). Moreover, studies have concluded that job stress has consistently increased among police officers in the last decade, and this chronic job stress negatively affects both the person and the organization. Individually, it leads to poor mental health ( Baldwin et al., 2019 ; Castro et al., 2019 ), work-family conflict ( Griffin and Sun, 2018 ), non-adaptive coping strategies and job stress ( LeBlanc et al., 2008 ; Zulkafaly et al., 2017 ), emotional labor ( van Gelderen et al., 2007 ), burnout ( Pines and Keinan, 2005 , 2007 ; Rosa et al., 2015 ), and even suicide ( Violanti, 1996 ; Blazina, 2017 ; Costa et al., 2019 ; Grassi et al., 2018 ). Organizationally, it affects performance ( Shane, 2010 ; Bertilsson et al., 2019 ; Kelley et al., 2019 ), counterproductive work behaviors ( Smoktunowicz et al., 2015 ), and inappropriate interactions with citizens, such as the use of excessive force ( Neely and Cleveland, 2011 ; Mastracci and Adams, 2019 ).

A number of news sources have recently reported that France 1 faces an increasing number of police officers committing suicide, especially after the intense work due to the “yellow vests/jackets” manifestations, while Spain 2 and Portugal 3 have also experienced several suicides of police officers, which motivated police officers to demonstrate in the streets and show their anger with job conditions in France 4 and Portugal 5 . Hard working conditions and colleagues’ suicides elicit continuous suffering and psychological pain that affects police officers, their families, and their tasks in important domains of urban life: safety and security. Additionally, stressful situations can increase the use of antidepressants, anxiolytics, or tranquilizers to alleviate psychological suffering, with Portugal being one of the countries where this increased use is the highest in Europe ( OECD, 2019 ), suggesting the need to invest in stress and anxiety prevention and in occupational health.

Despite the increased number of studies analyzing occupational stress and burnout among police officers, researchers frequently use measurement instruments developed for other professional groups which do not apply to the specificities of police tasks, including emotional labor and physical risks. This study aims to: (i) conduct a literature review to identify questionnaires that have been used to assess occupational stress and burnout among police officers; (ii) analyze the psychometric characteristics of a Portuguese version of Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op), developed by McCreary and Thompson (2006) , to assess the specificities of job stress among police officers; and, using the PSQ-op and other questionnaires, (iii) identify operational stress, burnout, and distress levels among Portuguese police officers.

Regarding burnout and occupational stress measurement among police officers, in the 1970s Freudenberger (1974) and Maslach (1976) identified the symptoms of burnout and defined burnout syndrome as a psychological disorder triggered by chronic exposure to work stress. Burnout has attracted considerable interest in the scientific community and has become a concern for workers, being recognized as a serious professional hazard and a psychosocial risk at work. The definition presented by Maslach and Jackson (1981) seems to be the most consensual, and states that burnout is a three-dimensional syndrome that affects workers whose job tasks are mainly related to helping and delivering care or services to other persons. Burnout is expressed by emotional exhaustion (feeling fatigued and powerless to provide more support to others), depersonalization (showing a disengaged, cynical, cold, and unsympathetic attitude toward persons at work, especially those who seek help or ask for services), and feelings of low professional achievement (feeling personal and professional inadequacy, and having a higher likelihood of committing errors during job tasks). Later, as a result of continuous research on burnout ( Maslach and Leiter, 2016 , 2017 ; Maslach, 2017 ) stated that burnout occurs more frequently among professionals who work with other persons, especially as service providers where, over the years, they must respond to the client’s demands in a society increasingly based on service exchanges, which elicits job stress.

Burnout appears as a response to chronic job stress ( Schaufeli, 2017 ) and has become an epidemic phenomenon with costs for workers and organizations, which is a concern that has been repeatedly highlighted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work ( EU-OSHA, 2018 ), namely with its “Healthy Workplaces” campaign. Moreover, several key organizations have reinforced the importance of burnout in modern society. On 10 October 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined mental health in the workplace as the theme for World Mental Health Day, highlighting job stress among specific professional groups, and in 2019 the WHO defined suicide prevention as the theme 6 , alerting the public to the risk of suicide among specific professional groups. In September 2018, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions ( EUROFOUND, 2018 ) published the report “Burnout in the workplace: A review of data and policy responses in the EU,” which found that burnout had become a serious problem in Europe and that measures were needed to assess its levels among different occupations. In May 2019, the WHO 7 recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon to be included in the next version of the International Classification of Diseases. Also in 2019, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work ( EU-OSHA, 2019a , b ) referred again to “The value of occupational safety and health and the societal costs of work-related injuries and diseases.” Again in 2019, the results of the “Third European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-3”) reinforced the negative impact of job stress and the importance of occupation health in preventing occupational stress among other psychosocial risks, a topic that the WHO 8 also highlighted.

According to Lazaus and Folkman (1984 , p. 21), “psychological stress, therefore, is a relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being.” Based on this definition, the concept of stress at the workplace, job stress, or occupational stress can be defined as a “pattern of physiological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses that occur when workers are presented with work demands not matched to their knowledge, skills, or abilities and which challenge their ability to cope” ( Patel et al., 2017 , p. 1), negatively influencing the worker’s wellbeing, performance, and productivity ( Quick and Henderson, 2016 ). Moreover, stress, especially job stress and occupational stress, are related and can predict burnout, since job stress can result from the relationship between job demands and job resources, or from the effort-reward imbalance ( Peiró et al., 2001 ; Lin et al., 2013 ; Chirico, 2016 ; Patel et al., 2017 ; Salvagioni et al., 2017 ; Wang et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, burnout can be a long-term process of resource depletion and inadequate responses to chronic job stress ( Maslach et al., 2001 ; Schaufeli, 2017 ). Burnout is difficult to distinguish from depression since they share similar symptoms ( Bianchi et al., 2015 ; Golonka et al., 2019 ; Koutsimani et al., 2019 ; Bianchi, 2020 ).

Using instruments that allow burnout and stress to be measured is therefore a vital necessity before designing intervention programs for resilience, stress management, and burnout or suicide prevention. However, for police officers as a professional group, those instruments must be chosen carefully, considering the specificity of their policing tasks. To identify the instruments used to measure burnout and stress among police officers, a literature search was performed between January and December 2019 on the EBSCO database of scientific papers, using the following search expression: “police officers” and “burnout or stress” and “instruments or tools or scale or questionnaire or inventory or measurement or assessment or evaluation.” The search found 191 scientific published papers after removing duplicated references. However, 49 papers were focused exclusively on post-traumatic stress disorder; 26 were written in languages other than English, Portuguese, or Spanish, or the complete paper was unavailable; 5 were theoretical papers; and 3 used qualitative methods. Thus, a final number of 108 studies were analyzed, identifying the publication year, number of participants, country of the sample, and instruments used for burnout and stress or occupational stress measurement.

Results of the literature review ( Table 1 ) revealed that most of the studies are recent ( Figure 1 ), though the interest in questionnaires to assess burnout or job stress began in the 1970s. In detail, 11 studies were published between 1979 and 1989, 13 between 1990 and 1999, 18 between 2000 and 2009, and 66 between 2010 and 2019. The samples came from 26 countries ( Figure 2 ), mostly the USA (33), but Brazil appears with 12 studies, 4 or 5 studies were found in the UK, Poland, India, Canada, Spain, and the Netherlands, and 2 or 3 in Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Taiwan, Jamaica, Italy, Greece, Germany, and Finland. Three papers used samples from several countries in the same study. Finally, countries with only one study included Thailand, Sri Lanka, South Korea, South Africa, Pakistan, Lithuania, Israel, and China. These data express the global interest of scientific research in stress among police officers.

Table 1. Studies using questionnaires to measure burnout or occupational stress of police officers.

Figure 1. Distribution of papers according year of publication.

Figure 2. Distribution of papers according country of the study.

The sample sizes varied between 11 and 13,146 participants ( M = 595; SD = 1358.56). However, a more detailed analysis ( Figure 3 ) revealed that 28 studies sampled 11–95 participants, 24 studies sampled 101–289, 20 studies sampled 305–489, 22 studies sampled 500–951, and 13 studies sampled 1000–4500 participants. One study collected data from 13,146 police officers in the USA ( McCarty et al., 2019 ).

Figure 3. Distribution of papers according sample size.

The analysis of measurement instruments revealed that 51 studies measured burnout ( Figure 4 ), with the Maslach Burnout Inventory being prevalent (32 studies), while the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory was used in five studies. Three studies used other measures or developed questionnaires adapted from other instruments, while nine studies used specific but different burnout measures. Measures of job stress were found ( Figure 5 ) in 72 studies: six used the Perceived Stress Scale, four used the Lipp Stress Inventory (from Brazil), five used the Police Stress Questionnaire, and 11 used several different police stress questionnaires. However, 10 studies used several occupational stress inventories, 15 used several job stress questionnaires, 15 used several stress questionnaires, and six used other instruments assessing health symptoms other than stress. This review revealed the proliferation of stress measures, although some studies already used specific police stress questionnaires. It can be concluded that measuring burnout and stress among police officers is a concern for the scientific community.

Figure 4. Distribution of papers according burnout measurement instrument.

Figure 5. Distribution of papers according stress measurement instrument.

In Portugal, for burnout measurement among police officers, a study used the Spanish Burnout Inventory ( Gil-Monte, 2011 ) and demonstrated that this questionnaire had adequate psychometric properties for a sample of Portuguese police officers ( Figueiredo-Ferraz et al., 2014 ). Another study ( Queirós et al., 2013 ) used the Maslach Burnout Inventory, analyzing only Cronbach’s alphas but not validating a Portuguese version. Regarding stress measurement, one study used a global measure of stress ( Gomes and Afonso, 2016 ), but no studies were found with specific stress measures for policing. Following the analysis of the specific stress instruments found in the literature review, we decided to translate and validate a Portuguese version of the Police Stress Questionnaire for operational stress. The Police Stress Questionnaire ( McCreary and Thompson, 2006 ) is a short measure (20 items) allowing for the assessment of operational or organizational police stress, it is freely available for research purposes and has established stress levels with cut-off points. Since some studies used global measures of stress or stress symptoms, it was decided to also use the short questionnaire Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), which has a recent Portuguese version ( Pereira et al., 2019 ). Thus, this study can contribute to the development of a Portuguese version of a specific police stress instrument, and to identify stress and burnout levels of a sample of police officers using validated instruments.

Materials And Methods

Participants.

The sample was composed of 2057 police officers of the Portuguese National Police ( Polícia de Segurança Pública, PSP ), a police force that works only in the cities of all 18 Portuguese districts and the Azores and Madeira Islands. The sample constitutes nearly 10% of this force and all districts were represented: Lisbon contributed 45% of the sample, Porto 19%, Setubal 6%, Faro and Azores 4%, Madeira 3%, and other districts between 0.3 and 2.5%.

Regarding police officers’ positions, 78.8% were in the “ agent ” category (the lowest-ranking officer), 14.6% were “chief,” and 6.5% commander (the highest rank). The most frequent tasks were patrolling (52%), criminal investigation (17%), and road traffic management (13%). Other participants worked in integrated special police units, rapid intervention teams, specific proximity teams (e.g., schools or elderly safety programs), administrative services, and commander teams.

The age of the participants varied between 21 and 65 years old ( M = 42.47; SD = 8.785), with 33.4% between 21 and 38 years, 32.5% between 39 and 45, and the rest between 46 and 65. Job experience in the Portuguese National Police varied between 1 and 41 years ( M = 19.267; SD = 9.036), with 32.3% of the sample between 1 and 14 years, 34.7% between 15 and 23 years, and the rest between 24 and 41 years. Regarding gender, 92% were men and 8% women, while overall women represent nearly 10% of the police force. To avoid the possible identification of individuals from the matching of position, age, gender, and district, no statistical analyses were performed that combined these data, and no other sociodemographic data were collected.

The questionnaire was composed of four major groups of questions, the first characterizing the sociodemographic data (age, sex, job experience, district, position, and job task). The second group was composed of the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op), developed by McCreary and Thompson (2004 , 2006) to assess the specificities of job stress among police officers both for operational and organizational stress sources (PSQ-Op and PSQ-Org). This study used the operational stress sources only. The PSQ-Op questionnaire is composed of 20 items evaluated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (“not at all stressful” or “no stress at all”) to 7 (“very stressful” or “a lot of stress”), with 4 indicating moderate stress. The authors were contacted by email to obtain permission for the Portuguese version, but no answer was obtained for the PSQ-Op as it is provided free for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes 9 . In later developments, McCreary et al. (2017) established norms and cut-off values, with values below 2.0 indicating low stress, between 2.1 and 3.4 moderate stress, and above 3.5 high stress. As far as we know, no Portuguese version of the PSQ-Op has been published, and two psychologists (one conducting research about policing and police forces, another working with police officers) translated the questionnaire into Portuguese. Another researcher, unfamiliar with police officers’ work, subsequently back-translated the questionnaire into English and compared it with the original version. Finally, these three researchers discussed each item with two police officers (a patrol police officer and a police station commander) until a lexical and cultural consensus was obtained, including suggestions from the police officers to add some examples adapted for Portuguese situations ( Table 2 ). A pilot study was performed with 20 police officers to ensure that the questionnaire was easy to complete and was applicable to the Portuguese situation, and no major changes were made.

Table 2. PSQ-Op original and Portuguese versions.

The third group of questions was composed from the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI, Gil-Monte, 2011 ), using a Portuguese version already tested on police officers, having demonstrated adequate psychometric properties ( Figueiredo-Ferraz et al., 2014 ). This instrument considers burnout as a process of cognitive and emotional deterioration, involving attitudes of indifference and guilt ( Gil-Monte and Manzano-García, 2015 ). It includes 20 items organized on four scales: (1) enthusiasm for the job (demonstrating, for instance, the ambition to accomplish a person’s professional goals because they are a source of personal achievement); (2) psychological exhaustion (emotional and physical exhaustion related to job tasks, increased by dealing every day with people who present difficulties or problems); (3) indolence (negative attitudes of indifference and cynicism when dealing with persons demanding things related to a person’s job tasks); and (4) guilt (negative feelings, behaviors, and attitudes in the workplace, elicited by interactions during labor relations). Each item is assessed by a 5-point frequency scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (very frequent or every day). Low scores on Enthusiasm for the Job, along with high scores on Psychological Exhaustion, Indolence, and Guilt, indicate high levels of burnout. Scores for each of the four scales are calculated using the mean of the items that compose each scale, and a global score for burnout is then calculated after reversing the items of the Enthusiasm scale. According to Poletto et al. (2016) , it is possible to use percentile analysis to identify burnout at very low levels ( P ≤ 10), low levels (11 < P ≤ 33), moderate levels (34 < P ≤ 66), high levels (67 < P ≤ 89), and critical levels ( P ≥ 90).

The fourth and last group of questions was composed from the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), from Kessler et al. (2002 , 2003) . We used the Portuguese version by Pereira et al. (2019) , who described K10 as having 10 items that assess the frequency of non-specific psychological distress symptoms during the last month, being a self-report measure based on questions about the symptoms of anxiety and depression. All items are assessed on a 5-point scale (1 = “none of the time” to 5 = “all of the time”) and the sum of the scores indicates the stress level, where high scores correspond to high stress levels. Using this sum it is possible to identify cut-off points of stress levels, where 10–15 points correspond to “low distress,” 16–21 points to “moderate,” 22–29 points to “high,” and 30–50 points to “very high.” Values between 22 and 50 points indicate a risk of developing a psychological disorder ( Andrews and Slade, 2001 ; Pereira et al., 2019 ).

After formal authorization by the Directorate of the Portuguese National Police to develop the study and collect data among the police officers, an online questionnaire was prepared on Google Forms with a link inviting participation in a study of burnout and occupational stress among police officers. The Directorate disseminated this link to the police officers using their professional email addresses. There was no direct contact between participants and researchers, and data were collected in September and October 2019. No exclusion criteria existed, and participation was voluntary. The participation rate was nearly 10% of the number of police officers that constitute this police force. Researchers were unable to identify how many police officers read the email and/or followed the link and decided not to participate. This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Ethics guidelines of the FPCEUP Ethics Committee, having online informed consent from all participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Thus, before responding to the questionnaire, participants were asked to provide their informed consent, with the notification that data would be gathered anonymously. Data were accessed by one researcher only, who downloaded the Excel file and converted it to SPSS format.

Data Analysis

Statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 24 (SPSS Inc., Chicago) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) version 24. In the first stage, preliminary analyses were conducted in order to assess descriptive statistics, and normality and non-multicollinearity at item level. To test the factorial structure of the PSQ-Op, we used a combination of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The sample was randomly split into two samples through the randomization function in SPSS. With the first part of the sample ( n = 636), an EFA using Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) with direct oblimin rotation was conducted to identify a viable factor structure by extracting the minimum number of factors that explained the maximum variance in the 20-item scale. With the remaining sample, a CFA was performed to verify if the solution obtained from the EFA presented an acceptable fit. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were the three indicators used to evaluate the model’s fit. An acceptable-fit model was determined if RMSEA ≤ 0.08, CFI > 0.90, and SRMR < 0.10 ( Kline, 2005 ). The chi-square test (χ 2 ) was reported for completeness, but not used to check the model fit due to its sensibility to large samples ( Kelloway, 1995 ). Based on the multivariate normality violations, CFA used the maximum likelihood estimation with bootstrapping (1000 resamples). The Bollen-Stine bootstrap p was an index fit also reported. Alternative factor models were generated and tested according to the modification indexes (MI > 11).

Convergent validity was assessed by computing the average variance extracted with values of AVE ≥ 0.50 indicating satisfactory validity. In turn, in order to investigate the evidence of discriminant validity, we examined whether the AVE values were equal to or greater than the squared correlation between the factors ( r 2 DV ) ( Maroco, 2014 ). Following the model specification, reliability was investigated using (a) Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and (b) composite reliability for each factor and for the overall scale.

Finally, the relationship between the PSQ-Op dimensions and distress and burnout symptoms was determined from the Pearson correlation coefficients including the entire sample, as well as the descriptive statistics, which allowed us to identify burnout, distress, and operational stress levels.

Since there are no specific measures for operational stress among police officers, it was necessary to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the PSQ-Op before identifying burnout, distress, and operational stress levels.

Preliminary Analysis: Item Properties

As shown in Table 3 , all possible Likert-scale answer values for each item were observed. The mean for most items was close to 5. The overall mean response for the 20 items was 4.97 ( SD = 0.45) No deviations from the normal distribution were found considering skewness ( Sk , < 3.0) and kurtosis ( Ku , ≤ 7.0) absolute values ( Byrne, 2016 ). All items presented significant positive corrected item-total correlations (≥0.40) and low variation in reliability if the item was deleted. Inter-correlations among all items were significant and no multicollinearity was obtained (0.390 ≤ r ≤ 0.731) ( Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001 ). Based on this analysis, 20 items were retained for subsequent analyses.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics about PSQ-Op items ( n = 2057).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In order to examine the factor structure, an EFA was conducted based on a randomized split of the data in the sample ( n = 636). EFA using principal axis factor analysis with promax rotation determined the factor structure of the 20 items of the questionnaire. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure presented a value of 0.964 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (χ 2 = 9621.92, p < 0.001), validating the correlation matrix structure. EFA yielded a 20-item measure with a two-factor solution ( Table 4 ): nine items included content related to social issues (items 7, 8, and 14–20), which expressed the feeling that a police officer is always on the job, as well as facing difficulties in managing personal life or balancing work and family, and having to deal with the public/social image of the police force and citizens’ negative comments; the other eleven items included content that reflected work issues (items related to specific details of policing tasks such as shift work, paperwork, injuries, fatigue, and traumatic events). These two factors together (social issues and work issues) accounted for 60.30% of the total variance. A good internal consistency for each factor was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients: factor 1, α = 0.937 and factor 2, α = 0.933.

Table 4. Factors extracted from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA): communalities and factor loadings ( n = 636).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Two-factor model.

Mardia’s coefficient for the PSQ-Op was 181.19, indicating violation of the multivariate normality, so a maximum likelihood estimation with bootstrapping was used to generate accurate estimations of standard errors (bias-corrected at the 95% confidence level). The two-factor model derived from EFA was then cross-validated on 1421 participants retained from the entire sample. This solution was run and demonstrated a marginal fit, since the CFI value was above 0.87 and RMSEA and SRMR values were below 0.10 ( Bong et al., 2013 ). The factor loadings of items were above 0.65 ( Table 5 ). The Bollen-Stine value ( p = 0.001) suggested a poor fit ( p > 0.05 according to Bollen and Stine, 1992 ), but this result might have been affected by the large sample size. High correlations between factors were observed.

Table 5. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA): fit indexes for each model tested ( n = 1421).

Convergent and Discriminant Validity Evidence

Values of AVE indicated the construct’s convergent evidence. AVE was determined for social issues (AVE = 0.59) and work issues (AVE = 0.54). Concerning the discriminant validity, AVE of the factors was compared to the r 2 DV . AVE for the two scales was smaller than r 2 DV= 0.76 . These data confirmed that the factors are strongly related to each other, indicating that a unidimensional model or a second-order latent model may be admissible solutions.

Unidimensional and Second-Order Models

A single latent model where the factor of operational police stress loads on all 20 items presented a poor fit. Higher error covariance was observed in more than 50% of the items. Based on this result, no additional covariance paths were allowed between error terms. Thus, we examined fit indices for a second-order solution called operational police stress ( Table 5 ), integrating the social and work issues. Based on the high modification indices, allowing errors to covary for items 3 and 5, 4 and 6, 10 and 11, and 15 and 16 improved the model fit. The PSQ-Op second-order construct ( Figure 6 ) presented an acceptable fit based on the values of CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR fit indices. All factor loadings were statistically significant ( p < 001). The constrained structural weights from operational police stress to social and work factors were high ( Ý = 0.89, Ý = 0.98, p < 0.001, respectively).

Figure 6. Final confirmatory factor analysis: second-order model with correlated errors.

Internal Consistency Evidence

To examine the reliability of the scores in the final model, we used Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and composite reliability. Good internal consistency was obtained in the higher-order construct (α = 0.96) and, simultaneously, for the first-order factors (α = 0.93). Composite reliability coefficients presented values of 0.92 and 0.93 respectively for factors with content related to work and social issues.

Relationship of PSQ-Op Factors to Distress and Burnout

The PSQ-Op dimensions obtained from the factorial analysis were associated with measures of distress and burnout for the overall sample ( Table 6 ). Positive and moderate to strong correlations ( Ratner, 2009 ) were found, demonstrating the convergent validity of this tool (except for Guilt where correlations were weaker). Higher scores on operational police stress dimensions, such as problems directly related to working conditions and to the impact of work on family and social life, were associated with increased scores in other scales of distress and burnout, except for Enthusiasm, which presented negative correlations. Considering the correlation values, it seems that social-related issues contributes most for burnout and distress compared to work-related issues.

Table 6. Relationship between PSQ-OP latent variables and distress and burnout symptoms ( n = 2057).

Psychological Indicators

Analyses of all the questionnaire scales ( Table 7 ) revealed that the sample presented at least one participant with the minimum or maximum value allowed by the scales’ range. The mean values for operational stress were moderate, being higher for Social-related issues than for Operational stress global score and Work-related issues. Moderate mean values were also found for burnout, being higher for Psychologic Exhaustion and Indolence than for Enthusiasm and Burnout, while Guilt presented a low value. Finally, moderate values were found for Distress, being higher (proportionally) for Anxiety and Distress than for Depression, though very similar. These results are based on mean values of the sample inside each scale range.

Table 7. Descriptive statistics of operational stress, distress and burnout.

However, a more detailed analysis was performed considering established levels and cut-off points for each questionnaire ( Table 8 ). For operational stress, the sample presented high stress for 89% on Work-related issues, 84.8% for Operational stress, and 76.2% for Social-related issues, while low stress was recorded at 2.5, 2.7, and 5.9%, respectively for each dimension, suggesting that police officers are experiencing high stress levels and, as referred, not moderates stress according to the mean values. Regarding burnout, 10.6% of the sample presented a very low level and 25.3% a low level for Enthusiasm, while 16.5% presented a high level and 10.6% a critical level for Psychological Exhaustion. For Indolence, those values were respectively 21.8 and 9.7% for Guilt, 20.3 and 8.9%, and for Burnout 21.9 and 10.7%. Finally, for Distress, 21.2% presented low stress, 26.5% high stress, and 28% very high stress, with 54.5% at risk of developing a psychological disorder. This suggests the importance of using cut-off points for each instrument, since they allow us to obtain more detailed information.

Table 8. Sample’s frequency (and percentage) distribution according established level (cut-off points).

The literature review showed that the most used psychological measures are not specific nor validated for the specificities of policing tasks. A previous study ( Figueiredo-Ferraz et al., 2014 ) demonstrated that the Spanish Burnout Inventory has adequate psychometric properties for police officers. Furthermore, the Portuguese version of the Police Stress Questionnaire for operational stress also revealed adequate psychometric properties, having a second-order construct but also the possibility to consider two scales that measure work-related issues and social-related issues. However, Irniza et al. (2014) found a unidimensional construct on PSQ-Op for Malay police officers.

Using those two measures combined with a short measure of distress, it was possible to identify burnout, distress, and operational stress among a large national sample of Portuguese police officers, representing nearly 10% of the entire Portuguese police force. The results showed that the mean values of burnout, distress, and operational stress were moderate, but the cut-off points revealed that operational stress and its scales of work-related issues and social-related issues presented high stress levels for more than 75% of the sample (85, 89, and 76%, respectively).

These results are in line with other studies, such as the research by Lipp et al. (2017) , who found that 52% of their sample felt stressed, and the study by Brown and Cooper (1996) , who also found high stress levels. In the original study for the development of the PSQ-Op, McCreary and Thompson (2006) found that the mean values among Canadian police officers for the 20 items varied between 2.66 and 4.40 and that operational stress had a mean value of 3.32, while the Portuguese sample presented values between 4.02 and 5.57 with operational stress having a mean value of 4.98. Despite the difference between the time of data collection and cultural differences between the countries, given that the maximum value in the range is 7 points, the data suggest a higher level of stress among the Portuguese than the Canadian police officers. Summerlin et al. (2010) found high stress levels among American police officers for some operational tasks (e.g., 68% of the sample considered paperwork to be highly stressful and 73% considered handling the public image to be so), but other tasks were considered as highly stressful only for a few participants (e.g., 16% for activities during days off), while the Portuguese sample considered all tasks as either moderately or highly stressful. Bergman et al. (2016) reported mean values for operational stress among American police officers as 3.4, and 2.91 after a mindfulness intervention. Kaplan et al. (2017) reported mean values for operational stress (also among American police officers) as 3.47. All of these values are smaller than the Portuguese sample in the current study.

The sample presented moderate values for distress symptoms, but 28% of the sample presented very high distress levels, with 55% at risk of developing a psychological disorder. Additionally, the depression scale presented higher values than anxiety. As stated by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work ( EU-OSHA, 2018 , 2019a , b ), stress has become one of the most important psychosocial risks in the workplace, and it is crucial to develop measures to prevent it. Moreover, anxiety and depression are increasing ( OECD, 2019 ) and are related to distress and burnout, which increases the difficulty of identifying and distinguishing these psychological problems ( Bianchi et al., 2015 ; Golonka et al., 2019 ; Koutsimani et al., 2019 ; Bianchi, 2020 ).

The sample also presented moderate values for burnout, with Guilt having the lowest average, while Psychological Exhaustion and Indolence were higher. However, the analysis of cut-off points revealed that 11% of the sample presented critical values for Burnout, while values between 9 and 11% were found for other burnout dimensions. These values are less than those found by McCarty et al. (2019) who found that 19% of a sample of American police officers suffered with emotional exhaustion and 13% with depersonalization. However, Gutshall et al. (2017) found moderate burnout levels for American police officers, whereas Solana et al. (2013) found high levels of burnout for Spanish police officers. As studies have revealed that burnout decreases self-protective behaviors and increases aggressive behaviors ( Euwema et al., 2004 ; Queirós et al., 2013 ; Ellrich, 2016 ), it seems important to assess burnout levels on a regular basis.

Finally, analysis of the correlation between operational stress, distress, and burnout found that higher scores for operational stress, such as problems directly related to working conditions and the impact of work on family and social life, were associated with higher scores for other scales of distress and burnout. Furthermore, it seems that social-related issues interfere most with burnout and distress compared to work-related issues. This may be due to the fact that currently a police officer is not so well respected by society, especially when they are from a national police force that works in urban centers, such as the Portuguese police officers sampled in this study. This means that a large number of participants are away from their families and friends, working in large urban cities such as Lisbon or Oporto, and have difficulties receiving social support from their relatives. This situation contributes to a difficult balance between work and family, and Portugal is a country where professionals work more hours and have more work-family conflicts according to the OECD Better Life Index 2019 10 .

Burnout and stress among police officers has received increased attention from the scientific community and society, due to the psychological suffering they inflict on the individual, but also because of their impact on the performance of police officers and their interactions with citizens, leading to the increased possibility of all interactions being considered a threat, or to a tendency to use excessive force. Thus, it is crucial to develop stress management interventions ( Patterson et al., 2014 ) and resilience interventions focused on policing specificities, such as those developed by projects like BCOPS ( Wirth et al., 2017 ), HEROES ( Thornton et al., 2020 ), POWER ( Papazoglou and Blumberg, 2019 ), or POLICE ( Trombka et al., 2018 ). However, before implementing an intervention, we need to identify burnout and stress levels, both in the early and later stages of a career. This implies a regular assessment of police officers and will be made easier if short and specific instruments are available and validated for policing stressors. Moreover, occupational health has become a concern, along with the need to identify critical situations early that might, without intervention, lead to situations that are more dangerous. Training mental strength, resilience, or emotional intelligence seems to be a possibility ( Papazoglou and Andersen, 2014 ; Meulen et al., 2017 ; Romosiou et al., 2018 ), as well as reflecting the work values of police officers ( Basinska and Daderman, 2019 ), since motivations for becoming a police officer have changed in recent decades ( Lester, 1983 ; White et al., 2010 ). Furthermore, according to Blumberg et al. (2019 , p. 1), new directions should be taken in police academy training, preparing police officers “to meet the contemporary challenges of police work,” and also to develop psychological skills, such as by including in the curricula stress prevention and management programs, as well as topics such as the stress-burnout relationship.

Psychological suffering among police officers can be expressed to others through disengagement or cynical behavior, or impact on the self in the form of depression, sometimes leading to suicide. In fact, suicide among police has become a serious problem and is commonly carried out with the service handgun ( Costa et al., 2019 ). Discussing the current study can help to increase awareness of psychological problems, especially those that are chronic and may result in burnout, and also to reduce burnout stigma and the stigma to seek help ( Endriulaitiene et al., 2019 ). The results highlight the importance of occupational health services in risk prevention and the recovery of workers who play a crucial role in society, such as police officers who deal with safety and security at a national level. Studies that seek to identify police officers’ stress and burnout levels must be continued and will contribute to identifying the risk and protective factors that influence a person’s well-being, quality of life, job performance, and mental health, and also their families and the beneficiaries of police services (society and citizens).

Theoretical Implications

This study highlights the need to continue research on burnout and stress among police officers to develop our understanding of specific police stressors, such as those evaluated by the PSQ-Op. The literature review reinforces the importance of developing psychological instruments focused on policing tasks, while the data of the sample allow us to verify the relationship between job stress, stress symptoms, and burnout, which present moderate to strong correlations, suggesting they are independent constructs. Furthermore, these results can contribute to scientific research on police forces, a topic that has received increased attention globally, with a particular focus on the causes of stress and burnout. Both the World Health Organization and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work have highlighted the need to prevent and manage job stress and to valorize mental health in the workplace, as well as the need to view burnout as an occupational phenomenon that must be considered among other psychosocial risks at work.

Practical Implications

This study provides preliminary data for the Portuguese version of the Police Stress Questionnaire, which presents adequate psychometric properties. Being a short measure, it can be used easily in the future to identify early police officers at risk of developing psychological problems, since occupational stress is related to burnout as an inadequate method of managing chronic job stress. This study used data from a large sample of Portuguese police officers, representing 10% of the entire national force, and the results can be used to identify stress and burnout levels before implementing intervention programs. Additionally, the literature review can be used to identify scientific studies that have assessed stress and burnout among police officers using questionnaires. These kinds of studies can contribute to reducing the stigma of seeking help when police officers confirm that a large number of colleagues are experiencing the same symptoms and difficulties.

Limitations

In the literature review, the search was focused on studies using questionnaires. This does not reflect all studies of police stress and burnout, which have increased enormously in the last decade. Moreover, the review did not consider post-traumatic stress, which can occur among professionals such as police officers who work in dangerous situations and frequently face critical incidents that can be potentially traumatic. Regarding data collection, the sample came from only one of the Portuguese police forces (called Polícia de Segurança Pública , a civil force). Despite the data being a national sample, no data were collected from police officers working in rural areas (from a militarized force called Guarda Nacional Republicana ), or from a judicial/criminal force (called Polícia Judicária ), which together comprise the three major Portuguese police forces. Furthermore, data analysis focused on the psychometric properties of the PSQ-Op and on stress/burnout identification levels. The analyses did not compare individual and professional characteristics such as age, gender, or career position. It is worth noting that the meta-analysis of Aguayo et al. (2017) found that sociodemographic factors can be associated with police officers’ burnout.

Future Research

It will be important in future research to include samples from other Portuguese police forces to verify the invariance of PSQ-Op structure and validity. It will also be necessary to analyze the organizational stressors, which form the second part of the Police Stress Questionnaire. Moreover, the impact of individual and professional characteristics on stress and burnout must be considered, since the literature frequently suggests that different genders deal differently with emotions and stressors, with women feeling more emotional exhaustion, whereas men feel more disengagement, depersonalization, or indolence, and react differently to shift work ( Violanti et al., 2018 ). Additionally, other psychological variables such as coping and resilience must be included, since they can affect stress responses and the process of stress and burnout development ( Allison et al., 2019 ).

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author, after National Portuguese Police authorization.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Ethics guidelines of the FPCEUP Ethics Committee, having online informed consent from all participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was approved by the Portuguese National Police.

Author Contributions

CQ, FP, AP, and CS designed the study. CQ and FP developed the theoretical framework. CQ and AM performed the literature review. AB, AP, and CQ performed the statistical analyses. All authors participated in results’ discussion and final version of the manuscript. All authors of this research manuscript have directly participated in the planning, execution, and analysis of this study.

This work was funded by the Center for Psychology at the University of Porto, Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT UID/PSI/00050/2013) and EU FEDER through COMPETE 2020 program (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007294).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We wish to reinforce there are several acknowledgements Directorate of Portuguese National Police who approved and disseminated the study; all police officers of the PSP (from the first professional positions through to the high commanders) who generously spent their time participating in and disseminating the study, allowing us to collect data from a national sample; Professor Pedro Gil-Monte and TEA Ediciones, Spain, who authorized the use of SBI Portuguese version; and Sara Faria and Sílvia Monteiro Fonseca, who helped with the literature search, its organization, and preliminary analysis.

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Keywords : burnout, distress, operational stress, police officers, questionnaire validation

Citation: Queirós C, Passos F, Bártolo A, Marques AJ, da Silva CF and Pereira A (2020) Burnout and Stress Measurement in Police Officers: Literature Review and a Study With the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire. Front. Psychol. 11:587. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00587

Received: 04 January 2020; Accepted: 12 March 2020; Published: 07 May 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Queirós, Passos, Bártolo, Marques, da Silva and Pereira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Cristina Queirós, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Fighting Stress in the Law Enforcement Community

Be it an officer patrolling a high-crime neighborhood in a big city, a small-town cop responding to a bar fight, or a homicide detective arriving at the scene of a multiple murder, the common factor in their jobs is stress. They work in environments where bad things happen.

The same is true of corrections officers — the men and women who work in prisons, often with thousands of convicted criminals who do not want to be there. Corrections officers work in confined societies that are, by definition, dangerous. The stress levels are so high that, in one study, 27 percent of officers reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). [1]

NIJ has a long history of supporting research related to stress for law enforcement personnel, but in 2016, NIJ’s experts determined that a coordinated research agenda was needed to better respond to this long-standing issue. As a result, NIJ developed the Safety, Health, and Wellness Strategic Research Plan to describe its current and projected efforts to promote the safety, health, and wellness of individuals who work in or are affected by the criminal justice system. What is unique in the plan is that it calls for science-based tools to measure and monitor physical and mental health. [2]

The plan, which will continue through 2021, focuses on three populations within the criminal justice system and includes those who are employed by, under the supervision of, or interact with the system. The plan states that “the focus on stress, trauma, and suicide and self-harm prevention cuts across demographic areas highlighting the importance of promoting research of these topics within the criminal justice system.”

Early Studies

This emphasis on health and wellness builds on earlier NIJ studies, such as a 1996 project to develop a law enforcement stress program for officers and their families. That report, based on nearly 100 interviews with mental health experts, police administrators, and officers, provided “pragmatic suggestions that can help every police or sheriff’s department reduce the debilitating stress that so many officers experience.” [3]

A 2000 NIJ-supported project looked at the high stress among corrections officers and noted that, in addition to understaffing, overtime, shiftwork, and a poor public image, the officers faced work-related stress that included the “threat of inmate violence and actual inmate violence.” The report said that many corrections officers “do not answer their home telephones because it might be the institution calling for overtime.” [4]

In 2005, the Police Foundation focused on how shiftwork affects police officers, which continues to be a serious issue throughout law enforcement. That NIJ-supported study looked at the length of shifts, the impact of double shifts, and other factors that lead to fatigue and physical problems for law enforcement personnel. [5]

A 2012 NIJ-supported study on shiftwork and fatigue concluded that shiftwork not only increases stress but also leads to sleep problems, obesity, heart problems, sleep apnea, and an increase in the number of officers who snore. That study, by John Violanti with the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Buffalo, also found a link between PTSD and increased rates of depression and suicide. “Mediation of brain processes due to sleep deprivation and fatigue may also impact suicidal thinking,” Violanti’s report said. [6]

Although many of these early studies were important, they were not part of a coordinated NIJ agenda to systematically study the impact of stress on health and wellness.

“So NIJ’s scientists came together in 2016 using taxonomy from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control to articulate a health and safety strategic plan,” said William Ford, director of the research division in NIJ’s Office of Science and Technology.

The focus on using scientific tools to obtain physical markers for stress and fatigue is new to studies of law enforcement, Ford said, “and we want to create data for other research down the line. We want to translate the body of research related to stress so it is applicable to the criminal justice community.”

Overcoming the “Tough Guy” Culture

A major hurdle in working with police and corrections officers on issues of physical and mental health is the “tough guy” attitude common in law enforcement. When researchers approach officers and ask about alcoholism, divorce, suicide, and other problems that are widespread in law enforcement, they do not want to talk about the issues on a personal level because it could damage their careers.

That was true when the earlier studies were done and it is true today, said Brett Chapman, a social science analyst in NIJ’s Office of Research and Evaluation. To overcome the resistance to programs that many in law enforcement see as indications of personal weakness, “you have to emphasize these programs in the police academy,” Chapman said.

In work that he has done with police departments, Chapman said that the more successful health and wellness programs were held at sites away from the departments “because officers are not going to go if it is at the department. If you show any indication that you’re under stress or anything like that, it could impact your career.”

When dealing with stress, officers typically say, “I’m going to control it and not let it control me,” Chapman said. “The next thing you know, divorce, alcohol use, drug use, and other problems start to occur.”

So, while officers — both men and women — are telling themselves how tough they are, their stress-related health problems inevitably begin. “Whether it’s obesity, or [a] cardio problem, or all of the other problems, they accumulate,” Chapman said.

See "The Stress of an On-The-Job Killing"

NIJ’s Strategic Research Agenda

When the strategic plan was instituted in 2016, several existing NIJ research grants supported its goals, including the University of Chicago study titled Law Enforcement Officers Safety and Wellness: A Multi-Level Study, which is still underway. It includes a two-stage survey of more than 1,000 personnel from law enforcement agencies to determine what is being done and what factors are at play in officer safety and wellness programs. The study addresses a wide range of stress-related topics, including violence, shiftwork, and alcohol abuse; according to the researchers, it is the first comprehensive national study of the law enforcement community. After evaluating several health and wellness programs, the researchers intend to design interventions that will provide agencies with best practices programs that can be successful.

The following are other NIJ safety and wellness grants that are part of the strategic plan:

• The Effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptoms on Behavioral, Psychological, and Neurophysiological Measures of Decision Making in Police Officers, a study by researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “In spite of the repeated exposure of police officers to traumatic events and the prevalence of PTSD symptomatology among officers, there are few studies to date that have examined the effects of PTSD on both the psychological and neurophysiological basis of police decision making,” the researchers said. An earlier study by the researchers found “reduced volume” in certain brain structures as a result of PTSD, and this current study continues and expands that work. [7]
• Neighborhoods, Stress, and Police Behavior: Understanding the Relationships , a study by researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit. The study examines how “chronic environmental stressors” affect police patrol officers, specifically looking at the challenges that come from policing in urban neighborhoods. “Though stress clearly impacts officers, it is unclear how stress influences policing at the street level, or what role various environmental stressors play in police officer stress and performance,” the researchers said.
• The Impact of Mindfulness-Based Resilience Training on Stress-Related Biological, Behavioral, and Health-Related Outcomes in Law Enforcement Officers, a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Acknowledging that law enforcement officers are exposed daily to “extreme levels of occupational stressors,” the researchers note that there are substantial differences in perceived stress by individual officers who are exposed to similar stressors. The researchers will study the impact of a novel training program called “mindfulness-based resilience training on perceived stress on physical and mental measurements in participants.”
• Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Correctional Officers: A Biopsychosocial Approach, a study by researchers at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. Noting that corrections officers “have a higher rate of suicide than any other occupation” and that one-third meet the criteria for PTSD, the researchers will use a randomized experimental design to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness training on biological mechanisms, such as cortisol levels. “This project has the potential to identify a feasible intervention that can ameliorate the effects of stress on correctional officers’ health,” the researchers said.
• Examining the Role of Physiological and Psychological Responses to Critical Incidents in Prisons in the Development of Mental Health Problems Among Correctional Officers, a study by researchers at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Noting that corrections officers experience high rates of workplace violence and rank high for nonfatal injury rates and absenteeism because of those injuries, the researchers are focusing on whether exposure to critical violent incidents contributes to negative health and occupational outcomes. The researchers are also examining whether corrections officers’ constant exposure to violence increases their vulnerability to developing PTSD.
• Defining Impact of Stress and Traumatic Events on Corrections Officers, a study by researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University, Portland. The researchers are conducting an 18-month observational study of about 400 corrections officers and will select the 80 most stressed and 80 least stressed officers. Those officers will undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify alterations in neurocognitive processes affected by stress. “This project will assess and define the impact of chronic stress and traumatic events on corrections officers to define the necessary urgent steps to improve officer well-being,” the researchers said.
• Suicide Prevention and Intervention Strategies by Law Enforcement Agencies: Utilization, Characteristics, and Costs, an in-depth and ongoing project by the RAND Corporation. Researchers surveyed law enforcement agencies both in the United States and abroad to learn about the programs and practices that agencies use to prevent suicide among their employees. The survey looked at why the programs were adopted, how they vary from agency to agency, and what resources were involved in implementing them. The data collection is complete, with 117 agencies contacted and about 150 interviews conducted. Project researchers are currently publishing the results in several journals.

The strategic plan cites a statement from the 2014 President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing that emphasizes the need for programs on officer health and wellness: [8]

Although the task force report focused on police officers and their communities, the NIJ strategic plan noted that the “sentiment of wellness within the report is equally relevant for those who work in other parts of the criminal justice system, as well as those in custody.”

“We’re talking about the employees in criminal justice, inmates, and the families of officers and of inmates,” Ford said. When a police or corrections department says they are concerned with officer safety, “we go up one level to be broader and more comprehensive. Our goal is to translate the body of research into something that is applicable to the entire criminal justice community.”

About This Article

This article was published in NIJ Journal No. 281 . 

[note 1] Caterina G. Spinaris, Michael D. Denhof, and Julie A. Kellaway,  Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in United States Correctional Professionals: Prevalence and Impact on Health and Functioning  (Florence, CO: Desert Waters Correctional Outreach, 2012).

[note 2] National Institute of Justice, Safety, Health, and Wellness Strategic Research Plan, 2016-2021 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, August 2016), NCJ 250153.

[note 3] Peter Finn and Julie Esselman Tomz, Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families , Issues and Practices in Criminal Justice (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, and Abt Associates Inc., December 1996), grant number OJP-94-C-007, NCJ 163175.

[note 4] Peter Finn, Addressing Correctional Officer Stress: Programs and Strategies , Issues and Practices in Criminal Justice (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, and Abt Associates Inc., December 2000), grant number OJP-94-C-007, NCJ 183474.

[note 5] Karen L. Amendola et al., “ The Impact of Shift Length in Policing on Performance, Health, Quality of Life, Sleep, Fatigue, and Extra-Duty Employment ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2005-FS-BX-0057, January 2012, NCJ 237330.

[note 6] John M. Violanti, “ Shifts, Extended Work Hours, and Fatigue: An Assessment of Health and Personal Risks for Police Officers ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2005-FS-BX-0004, March 2012, NCJ 237964.

[note 7] Janet L. Shucard et al., “Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Exposure to Traumatic Stressors Are Related to Brain Structural Volumes and Behavioral Measures of Affective Stimulus Processing in Police Officers,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 204 no. 1 (October 30, 2012): 25-31.

[note 8] President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, May 2015), 62.

About the author

Jim Dawson is a forensic science writer and contractor with Leidos.

Cite this Article

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Watch CBS News

Never-before-seen photos and details about the man accused of murdering four Idaho college students

By Peter Van Sant

January 7, 2023 / 11:02 PM EST / CBS News

Under a dark Idaho sky, investigators flew Bryan Kohberger to the college town of Moscow. Police delivered him to the Latah County Jail. On Jan. 5, in an orange jumpsuit, his face vacant, the 28-year-old made what will likely be his first of many appearances in this court.  

He stands charged with the murder of four students from the University of Idaho: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison "Maddie" Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. Investigators say he stabbed them to death in the home the women shared. 

JUDGE: The maximum penalty for this offense, if you plead guilty or be found guilty is up to  death and imprisonment for life. Do you understand?  

BRYAN KOHBERGER: Yes.  

Kohberger has not yet entered a plea.

In an affidavit , investigators laid out their understanding of the grim details about the night of the killings:  They say the killer left his DNA on a "leather knife sheath" found on a bed next to Maddie Mogen. And, most hauntingly, they say a surviving roommate thought she heard crying and "saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask."    

The man walked past, as she stood in "frozen shock."  She locked herself in her room.  

The investigation is fast-moving. Authorities have not disclosed a motive or if he had a connection to the students, but we are learning more about just who Bryan Kohberger is.   

WHO IS ACCUSED KILLER BRYAN KOHBERGER?

Just 15 days before his arrest, Bryan Kohberger and his father were driving home from Washington State University for winter break to the family's home in Pennsylvania.

OFFICER (body cam video): Hello MICHAEL KOHBERGER: How you doing? OFFICER: How ya'll doin today?

The journey interrupted by two traffic stops, almost 10 minutes apart, in Indiana for tailgating.

MICHAEL KOHBERGER (to officer): We're gonna be going to Pennsylvania, a couple more miles. OFFICER: Oh, OK. MICHAEL KOHBERGER: …to the Pocono Mountains. We're a little, we're slightly punchy. We've been driving for hours. 

Police body cam video shows Kohberger and his father talking calmly with an officer about the trip.

OFFICER: Hours? And days? BRYAN KOHBERGER: Hours. MICHAEL KOHBERGER: Hours. Well, we've been driving for almost a day. OFFICER: Do me a favor and don't follow too close, OK?  

Then they are released with a warning.

Kohberger had been at the university since August, studying to get his Ph.D. in criminology. He was also a teaching assistant in the Department of Criminal Justice. He lived in an apartment complex on campus and had an office there.

According to the newly released affidavit, Kohberger had applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall. He wrote in his application essay that "he had interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with how to better collect and analyze technological data."

Benjamin Roberts took four classes with Kohberger.

Benjamin Roberts : He seemed very comfortable around other people. He was very quick to offer his opinion and thoughts. And he was always participating fairly eagerly in classroom discussions.

He says Kohberger appeared highly intelligent.

Peter Van Sant : Does anything else come to mind that Bryan said to you in the past that today you think might be of interest?

Benjamin Roberts : There was a comment that he made, and it was kind of a flippant guy talk thing. At one point, he just idly mentioned, you know, "I can go down to a bar or a club and pretty much have any lady I want."

Kohberger arrived at the university after earning his bachelor's in psychology and master's degree in criminal justice at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania.  

While at DeSales, authorities say Bryan Kohberger posted this survey, approved by the university, on the website Reddit asking ex-cons about the crimes they committed. One question he asked: "Before making your move, how did you approach the victim or target?

James Gagliano : This could be a piece of circumstantial evidence.

James Gagliano is a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent and CBS News consultant.

James Gagliano: The fact that the suspect was interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in criminal justice and was especially interested in … the mental state that people who had committed murders in the past … yes, it could be interesting to note. But I know a lot of researchers that study those things, too, that would never commit a quadruple homicide.

And if Kohberger was involved in these murders, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore questions why he would be so careless as to allegedly leave his DNA at the crime scene. 

CeCe Moore : People are talking about how smart he supposedly is. And I just can't see how that could be true, because any student of forensic science or criminology would have to know that it's virtually impossible not to leave your DNA behind at a very violent, intimate crime scene like this.

CeCe Moore : You know, Ted Bundy thought he was smart. But he wasn't that smart, as it turns out.

After the murders, Roberts says Kohberger appeared disheveled, tired and chattier than usual.

But nothing could prepare Roberts for what he learned o f Kohberger's arrest.

Benjamin Roberts : Looking back over the last four months, I feel like there should have been signs that I should have seen. And I didn't ... I was blindsided.

Jason LaBar : This is out of character for Bryan, these allegations.

Monroe County public defender Jason LaBar represented Kohberger before he was extradited to Idaho.

Jason LaBar : The family would want the general public to know that Bryan is a caring son and brother —that's he's responsible, that he is devoted to them.

In a statement the family said, "we care deeply for the for the four families who have lost their precious children" ... and that they "seek the truth and promote his presumption of innocence rather than judge unknown facts and make erroneous assumptions."

Jason LaBar : He is innocent until proven otherwise.

LaBar says Kohberger came from a close-knit family. He grew up in eastern Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains. His father was as a maintenance worker and his mom worked in the school system. Bryan has two older sisters – one who works as a family therapist, and another sister who appeared in a 2011 low budget slasher film, "Two Days Back," about a group of young students viciously murdered by a serial killer. She now works as a school counselor. 

Bree : My heart goes out to Bryan's family.

Kohberger's friend, Bree, says she met Bryan at a party when they attended Pleasant Valley High School. She asked "48 Hours" not to use her last name.

Bree : Bryan was really funny. He wasn't outgoing at all. But he also wasn't shy.

She says they bonded over their love of the outdoors.

Bree : I don't necessarily remember the conversations, but you definitely remember how someone makes you feel. … I just remember feeling OK — I was just with a friend. … Just felt natural.

Bree recalls Kohberger was an average student with only a few close friends. In a yearbook photo, Kohberger's caption said he aspired to be an Army Ranger.

Casey Artnz also knew Kohberger from high school . She posted this Tik Tok following Bryan's arrest.

CASEY ARNTZ TIK TOK: "I used to be friends with Bryan Kohberger" ... "I'm in actual shock right now."

Casey Arntz : He was an overweight kid. … So, he did get bullied a lot.

But Arntz says people saw a change in Kohberger the beginning of senior year.

Casey Arntz : He lost like 100 pounds . … He was a rail. … It was after that weight loss that a lot of people noticed a huge switch in him.

Casey Arntz : My brother has since come out to say that even though they were friends, Bryan bullied him.

Casey Arntz : He had said that he would put him in like a chokeholds and stuff like that.

Bree says Kohberger started using heroin, which ended their friendship.

Bree : You just saw him becoming more self-destructive. … He really stayed secluded.

It's unclear when exactly Kohberger went into recovery, but both Bree and Casey say years after he graduated high school it appeared as if he was getting his life together. He was going to Northampton Community College and working security for Pleasant Valley School District.

Bree : He was telling me that he wanted to get sober, that he was getting sober. … And he wanted to let me know like, "I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna be better."

Bree : I'm sorry ... (emotional)

 Casey Arntz : The last time I saw Bryan was in 2017 at one of my friend's wedding. … And I gave him a hug and I said, "You look so good. Like I'm so proud of you."

And both Bree and Casey say it appeared that Kohberger had a new focus — his studies in criminology.

Bree : He wanted to do something that impacted people in a good way.

Bree: People were not his strong suit. And think through his criminology studies, he was really trying to understand humans and to try and understand himself.

Now Bree, like many who knew him, struggles to connect the person they once knew to this unspeakable crime.

Bree : I think a lot of people who were close to him are feeling this massive amount of guilt … "Why didn't I see it? Did I miss something? … Where did it go wrong?

THE YOUNG LIVES LOST

Before it was a crime scene, it was a home to five close friends. Maybe none closer than Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.

On TikTok, the 21-year-old seniors looked like they were enjoying their final school year.

In the early morning of November 13, the two friends headed to a food truck. But their seemingly carefree existence would come to an abrupt end just hours later. Kaylee and Maddie were stabbed to death in the upstairs part of the house. A hundred miles away in northern Idaho, Kaylee's father Steve got the news.

Peter Van Sant : Steve, give us a sense of the shock of that moment.

Steve Goncalves : You just feel like you're getting crushed by a thousand pounds of weight.

Peter Van Sant : What do you want the world to know about your daughter, Kaylee?

Steve Goncalves : I want the world to know, they — they got robbed. Somebody stole from you.

Steve Goncalves says his daughter Kaylee would have made the world a better place. A general studies major, she was the middle child of five siblings. Goncalves says Kaylee was always up for a challenge.

Steve Goncalves : She grew up around two boys that were, you know, older than her. And uh, she didn't see any reason why she couldn't be as quick and fast and as good as those two boys were.

Peter Van Sant : What did she want to do with her life?

Steve Goncalves : Like most young people, it changed. She was gonna be a teacher. … But once she found out how long it was gonna take to pay back her student loans, she — she said, "Dad, you know, this thing that you do with computers seems to work pretty well."

She reportedly had a job lined up in Austin but made it clear that one day she hoped to settle down somewhere near her dearest friend Maddie Mogen.  Maddie was a marketing major, and she and Kaylee had been inseparable since the sixth grade.

Steve Goncalves : I just felt like it was more of a sistership than it was a friendship ... And she was just one of our kids.

So, it perhaps did not come as a surprise when Steve revealed at a November memorial that Kaylee and Maddie died side-by-side.

STEVE GONCALVES (memorial service): They went to high school together. … They came here together. … And in the end, they died together. In the same room, in the same bed. It comforts us. It lets us know that they were with their best friends in the whole world.

It was a belief Maddie's stepfather, Scott Laramie, repeated to another packed memorial just days later.

SCOTT LARAMIE (memorial service): The two of 'em were a force to be reckoned with. They stuck together through everything.

Maddie had a boyfriend, Jake Schriger.

JAKE SCHRIGER (memorial service): She was the first person I talked to every morning and the last person I talked to before bed.

They had been together for more than a year. Schriger says Maddie had a talent for making people laugh.

JAKE SCHRIGER (memorial service): She was really funny. Her jokes really would come outta nowhere … And just be like, "Is that the — the cute little blonde girl that just said that?"

But Maddie and Kaylee weren't the only victims.  While two other roommates were in their rooms and unharmed during the attacks, on the second floor, the killer made his way to the room of Xana Kernodle.

JAZZMIN KERNODLE (memorial service): She was my baby sister, but she was so much wiser.

Xana's sister, Jazzmin.

JAZZMIN KERNODLE (memorial service): She would always tell me she wouldn't know what to do without me. And now I have to live this life without her.

A 20-year-old junior majoring in marketing, Xana was known for being focused on her studies. So focused, she didn't make much time for dating.

JAZZMIN KERNODLE (memorial service): Xana never had a boyfriend before, and my dad and I wondered if she was ever gonna get one (laughs).

That was until she met Ethan Chapin.

JAZZMIN KERNODLE (memorial service): The way she would talk and smile about him was something I've never seen her do before.

Ethan was a 20-year-old majoring in recreation and tourism management. Jazzmin says Xana and Ethan began dating in the spring of 2022.

JAZZMIN KERNODLE (memorial service): They had something so special and everyone around them knew.

Especially anyone who followed the pair on Instagram. For Ethan's birthday, Xana posted photos of them with the caption: "Life is so much better with you in it, love you!" It would be her last Instagram post. Just two weeks later, the young couple was found stabbed to death in Xana's bedroom.

At the University of Idaho, the pain of this tragedy is felt at the root and extends hundreds of miles away to a tulip farm in Skagit Valley, Washington. It's where Ethan worked before heading to college. His boss, Andrew Miller.

Andrew Miller : So, Ethan started – it was in the spring of — of '21. … It was the best Tulip Festival.

Miller says the annual tulip festival attracts close to half-a-million visitors, and Ethan stood out in the crowd.

Andrew Miller : Well, he's a big guy wearin' a big smile, right? I think that's the part that I – that kinda struck me right away.

Ethan – a triplet – worked there with his siblings, Maizie and Hunter, and lived in a rented house on the farm with their parents. The Chapin triplets were incredibly close says Reese Gardner.

Reese Gardner :  They were best friends. … If one did something, they all did something. … It was pretty cool to see.

Including attending the University of Idaho together.

Andrew Miller : And that was the funniest thing, it was like, of course it was a package deal. Like, all three of 'em were gonna go there.

Ariah Macagba : He was excited, I think, 'cause his siblings were going with him.

Ariah Macagba says Ethan's parents had decided to live in Idaho, too. Macagba says when she heard Ethan had been murdered, she couldn't believe it.  

Ariah Macagba : I think the first thing I did was message Ethan. I was like, "Hey, you're OK, right? Like, this isn't real." (crying) And — obviously, he didn't respond.

Reese Gardner scoured the internet for information.

Reese Gardner : And I just couldn't stop reading articles and … I just wanted to know what happened, and I wanted to know why.

But in lieu of answers, Gardner turned to tulips. He had an idea: name one after Ethan.

Reese Gardner : I thought, "There's — there's no better way … to remember someone who had such a big part, a big role in those farms."

Andrew Miller : Cause Reese called me … And it was, "Hey, can this be done, and are you interested in doing it?" And I was, "Yes, and hell yes."

But creating a new tulip is a long process, so instead, Miller suggested a mix of tulips that would be a perfect tribute to Ethan: yellow and white.

Andrew Miller : Yellow, of course, because Go Vandals. University of Idaho, right? That's significant. And then white is — is an eternal color, right? And tulips come up in the spring. It is a symbol of — of hope.

With his parents' blessing, they named the mix of tulips, "Ethan's Smile."

Andrew Miller : So, this will be a nice yellow or white tulip here in about four months.

The trio planted thousands of bulbs in the state of Washington and sent a couple thousand more to the University of Idaho.

Andrew Miller : And it really is our hope that we'll be able to continue to plant and that anybody that wants to remember him will be able to have their own Ethan's — Ethan's Smile Garden. …  It's a living legacy.

Now it is up to prosecutors to get justice for these young victims .

IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS

Forty-seven days after the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, and Xana Kernodle, authorities apprehended the man they believed was responsible.  We now know investigators had Bryan Kohberger in their sights early on but kept it close to the vest. So, in the early days, after the Nov. 13 murders, frustration swept over Moscow, Idaho.

James Gagliano : I think in this instance people were expecting a pretty quick arrest in this case, and it takes time.

Steve Goncalves, father of 21-year-old Kaylee, was trying as best he could to deal with news no one expects.

Steve Goncalves : Most things I'm prepared for. Most things as a dad, you can— you can handle. But somethin' like that, you just can't prepare for and you can't fix it.

Steve Goncalves : And, you know, just think if you do everything right, by the book, somethin' like this couldn't happen.

Peter Van Sant : Did you have any sense who might have done something like this?

Steve Goncalves : No … I didn't think anybody in her inner circles was — was capable of interacting and — and her doing something that could even deserve something like that.

As news spread of the murders, so did shock in the college community, which had not seen a homicide since 2015.

Matt Loveless : Parents drove hundreds of miles to pick up their kids to head home and stay home for the semester.

Matt Loveless is a journalism professor at nearby Washington State University.

Matt Loveless : At this point, we don't know if they're gonna come back for — the spring semester there on campus. And that same thing happened in both our communities.

James Gagliano: And, so, when parents send their kids off to school, for something to happen like this, I think it's a parent's worst nightmare

James Gagliano : And it's a place, Moscow, Idaho, where violent crime really is not an issue.

As police started their investigation, they traced the victims' final steps. The day before the murders seemed to start ordinarily. Kaylee Goncalves posted photos with her roommates and Ethan Chapin, to her Instagram account with the caption, "One lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday." That evening, Ethan and Xana attended a party at a fraternity house on campus.  Kaylee and Madison were at a bar between 10 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. They were then seen at a local food vendor, the "Grub Truck."  It is believed they all returned home by about 2 a.m. on Nov. 13.

James Gagliano : So, in examining the timeline , police know that the crime took place sometime in the early morning hours. There were also two other University of Idaho students who were inside the house when the murders took place.

It was later that morning that a call was made to 911 from one of the surviving roommate's phones to report an unconscious person.  Police arrived at the house at 11:58 a.m.

James Gagliano : Police find the victims on the second and third floor of the house in bedrooms — a horrific and a very large-scale crime scene 'cause you're gonna be dealing with a number of different floors that need to be processed, the bedrooms where the crimes actually occurred, and then ingress and egress points. How did the — how did the alleged killer get inside the house? Through a front door? Through a window? Those are all things police will be looking at.

CHIEF JAMES FRY (to reporters): No weapon has been located at this time. There was no sign of forced entry into the residence.

On Nov. 16, three days after the murders, the Moscow Police held their first press conference.

CHIEF JAMES FRY (to reporters): We believe this was an isolated, targeted attack on our victims. We do not have a suspect at this time and that individual is still out there.

Coroner Cathy Mabbutt issued her report on Nov. 17.

Coroner Cathy Mabbutt: They were all murdered through stabbing with some kind of a, probably a larger knife…

She told police some of the four victims had defensive wounds, but none had signs of sexual assault.  Police continued to work the case, aided by the Idaho State Police and the FBI.

James Gagliano : I just believe that the Moscow Police Department probably just didn't have a lot of experience in working a homicide, especially one as heinous as this one.  

After about three weeks with no arrests, and what, to the public, appeared to be no real suspects, Steve Goncalves grew more concerned that authorities weren't doing enough and that the murders would turn into a cold case. So, he says, he started working with his own team to investigate the murders.

Steve Goncalves : So, we just thought, "This is the time. Let's get it out there, and let's not let it get cold. Let's get as many resources as— as possible."

Peter Van Sant : And did you have any sense whatsoever as to what a motive … might have been for these murders?

Steve Goncalves : Pretty girls and a handsome guy. I thought, you know, that might be somethin' to do with their, you know, stalking them in the sense of that.

Meanwhile, names of possible people of interest were trickling out — including members of the community and acquaintances of the victims. But they all seemed to be part of an unfounded rumor mill, many from online sleuths.  Goncalves even had people come to him to prove they were not involved.

Steve Goncalves : We — had certain suspects take their shirts off in our kitchen to show if they had scratches. And we tried to do everything in — in our powers to make sure that if we thought somebody was ruled out, we truly — we truly felt like, you know, we — we looked at 'em.

Law enforcement would end up receiving thousands of tips, but the investigation, by outward appearances, seemed to be stalled.  Nearly a month after the murders, on Dec. 7, police were seen packing up the victims' belongings to return to the families, who had lost so much. It was the police chief behind the wheel of the U-Haul truck. That same day, a plea was made to the public.

Police were interested in speaking with the occupant(s) of a white 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra with an unknown license plate, spotted near the crime scene, around the time of the killings.

AMANDA ROLEY | KREM REPORTER: Today's update is the first descriptive tip that we have received in several days. Detectives now want to speak with anyone who was inside a white Hyundai Elantra that was near this home on King Road around Nov. 13th.  

Police released photos of similar makes to the vehicle they were looking for.

CHIEF JAMES FRY (to reporters): We still believe there is more information to be gathered.

James Gagliano : Pushing that out to the media. Pushing that out to people on the internet. Pushing that out so that people can look for either a potential suspect, person of interest, or a potential vehicle. That goes a long way towards running down leads.

INSIDE THE INVESTIGATION

It turns out that about two weeks before the police asked the public to be on the lookout for a white Hyundai Elantra , they had already shared that information with surrounding law enforcement. And on Nov. 29, 2022, a white Elantra was located by Washington State University Police. The car was registered to Bryan Kohberger.

CBS News learned, that in mid-December, the Hyundai Elantra was tracked for several days by the FBI, using E-ZPass monitoring, fixed wing aircraft and ground support, as it was driven by Kohberger, along with his father, from Pullman, Washington, on that cross-country trip to the family's home in Pennsylvania.

On Dec. 15, the car was stopped twice in Indiana for those driving violations, by the Indiana State Police and the Hancock Sheriff's Office.

OFFICER: So, you're coming from Washington State University? MICHAEL KOHBERGER: Yeah. BRYAN KOHBERGER: Yup OFFICER: And you're going where? MICHAEL KOHBERGER: We're gonna be going to Pennsylvania.

Both agencies said at the time of the stops, "there was no information available on a suspect for the crime in Idaho, to include identifying information or any specific information related to the license plate state or number of the white Hyundai Elantra …" 

Police did not ticket Kohberger; they gave a verbal warning and the trip continued home. And then, Kohberger's holiday came to an abrupt halt . 

CBS NEWS REPORT:  A suspect is under arrest for the quadruple murder of four Idaho college students.

On Dec. 30, 2022, police made that announcement that Bryan Kohberger was under arrest for the murders. He was arrested at his family's home in Albrightsville, Pa., at 3 a.m., with approximately 50 law enforcement officers on the scene. 

MAJ. CHRISTOPHER PARIS | PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE: There were multiple windows that were broken I believe to gain access, as well as multiple doors.

Authorities believe Bryan Kohberger acted alone.

Jason LaBar : Bryan was very shocked by his arrest. … Bryan did not know why they were there, but he was aware of the case in Idaho.

Monroe County public defender Jason LaBar represented Kohberger in Pennsylvania as he was awaiting extradition to Idaho.

Jason LaBar : Bryan indicated to me that he was eager to be exonerated — that he was willing to go back to Idaho.

On Jan. 3, at a hearing in Pennsylvania, Kohberger signed his waiver of extradition. And on Jan. 4, was flown to Idaho, where he is in jail, charged with the four murders.

On Jan. 5, Kohberger appeared in court in Moscow with his new public defender to hear the charges read against him. He has yet to enter a plea.

JUDGE MEGAN MARSHALL:  The maximum penalty for this offense if you were to plead guilty or be found guilty is death or imprisonment for life. Do you understand?   

BRYAN KOHBERGER: Yes.

That same day, that affidavit was released that laid out startling new details about the murder investigation. According to the affidavit, one of the surviving roommates actually saw the murderer and stood in a "frozen shock phase."  She is referred to as DM in the affidavit, and told police that earlier, she heard a female voice say, 'something to the effect of  "there's someone here." And later, a male voice say, "something to the effect of "it's ok, I'm going to help you." Later she opened her door "… after she heard crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask..." She described the figure as "5'10'… with bushy eyebrows."

The affidavit states that, according to DM, the male walked toward the back sliding door and DM locked herself in her room. It was later in the morning when that call was made to 911 from one of the surviving roommate's phones, to report an unconscious person. It is unclear what occurred in the hours before police were called. It is believed the murders took place between 4 and 4:25 a.m. Police say they discovered, on the bed in Madison's room, a knife sheath with a Marine insignia.

James Gagliano : I would imagine that a — crime scene as — as grisly and ghastly as this one — that there would have been … DNA left by the perpetrator.

According to the affidavit, the knife sheath was processed and "the Idaho State Lab later located a single source of male DNA on the button snap."  They were able to link it to DNA recovered from the trash at the Pennsylvania Kohberger family home.

It is not clear, what, if any, connection Kohberger had with the victims. However, the affidavit states that by using cellular phone data, police were able to place Kohberger's cell phone near the crime scene "on at least twelve occasions before November 13, 2022. All of those occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours …"

Even with these new details, many question remain. A newly issued gag order prohibits officials and others involved in the case from speaking about the murders. Also, authorities have sealed a search warrant that was carried out at Kohberger's home in Pullman, Washington.

Jim Gagliano : This is one where you don't want a mistake. You don't want something to happen during this process that's going to give the alleged suspect an opportunity to beat the case.

Now, the case will work its way through the court system as parents, who lost their children, will be looking for answers.

Steve Goncalves : We find the truth, you know. You get the truth, and then that — that'll — that'll be everything.

IN REMEMBRANCE

You can see it in the stunned, silent faces of the kids. Faces that ask "why?" without even speaking. 

Young eyes glisten, bathed in the glow of candlelight at a vigil held for the young lives lost.  A ritual all too familiar across America. The flowers, the prayers, the vows to carry on. In Idaho, they hold on tight to each other and to the memories of those loved and lost.

EMILY (memorial service): Life is so unfair and unpredictable (crying).

For Xana Kernodle's friend Emily, the wound remains raw.

EMILY (memorial service): And it tears me apart knowing I can't hug her. (Crying) So hold those you love closer. Hug them a little tighter and tell 'em you love them. We'll find justice for you, Ethan, Maddie, and Kaylee. We love you all so much.

And for Ashlin, Maddie Mogen's memory is still vibrant.

ASHLIN (memorial service): You truly will live on forever -- not only in my heart, but in the heart of so many people that were impacted by your beautiful smile, your grace, your patience, your open heart, and your craziness.

Hunter Johnson remembers a pal he could rely on — Ethan Chapin.

HUNTER JOHNSON (memorial service): Ethan was always someone you could count on to make you smile and — cheer up your mood. … And I — feel so lucky to have shared so many great memories with him (emotional).

But those who are older perhaps sense that pain that runs this deep, never goes away. Kaylee's father, Steve Goncalves.

Steve Goncalves : You don't heal from somethin' like this. … it's never gonna happen. You're never gonna be healed. You're never gonna get through this. And when they die, part of you dies.

Steve Goncalves : We're tired of all these types of crimes. We're tired of all this stuff. And — we can rally around these terrible tragedies, and … We're hopin' that as a society we come back stronger. And we — we decide to not let this be accepted anymore, you know. That's what I hope for.

Bryan Kohberger's next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 12.

He will have a chance to enter a plea at a later date.

• Bryan Kohberger

"48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant first joined CBS News in 1984.

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Police Stress, Mental Health, and Resiliency during the COVID-19 Pandemic

John stogner.

1 Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC USA

Bryan Lee Miller

2 Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice, Clemson University, Clemson, SC USA

Kyle McLean

The COVID-19 pandemic created social upheaval and altered norms for all members of society, but its effects on first responders have been particularly profound. Law enforcement officers have been expected to coordinate local shutdowns, encourage social distancing, and enforce stay-at-home mandates all while completing the responsibilities for which they are already understaffed and underfunded. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on officer stress, mental health, resiliency, and misconduct is explored drawing insight from reactions to the HIV epidemic over two decades earlier and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. COVID-19 policing is hypothesized to serve as a significant stressor for officers and compound the general and organizational stress associated with the occupation. Avenues for providing officer support are discussed and recommendations for research into the phenomenon presented.

Policing is one of the most mentally taxing occupations contending with long and often rotating shifts, threats of violence, increased need for hypervigilance, and a lack of public support creating chronic stress (Hartley, Burchfiel, Fekedulegn, Andrew, & Violanti, 2011 ; McCraty & Atkinson, 2012 ; Paoline, 2003 ; Terrill, Paoline, & Manning, 2003 ). As a result, law enforcement officers suffer from mental health problems at a rate greater than the general population even before dealing with added pandemic challenges, stress, and uncertainty (Hartley et al., 2011 ). Mental health problems among law enforcement personnel are associated with work environment, agency culture, inconsistent shift scheduling, and presumably higher exposure to traumatic events and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Brown & Campbell, 1990 ; Collins & Gibbs, 2003 ; Crank & Caldero, 1991 ; Marmar et al., 2006 ). Consequently, law enforcement officers are more likely than the general population to suffer from depression, experience familial strife, misuse alcohol, and attempt suicide (Wang et al., 2010 ; Rees & Smith, 2008 ; Menard & Arter, 2013 ). These negative coping behaviors can hinder officer resiliency in the wake of traumatic incidents. They also have the potential to impair reactions to large-scale social and occupational changes induced by anomic conditions which place increased demands for a wide range of law enforcement services.

The sudden disruption of American society resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is particularly concerning as it may impact police mental health at a time when they are most needed by the public. Law enforcement officers are not immune from the stress that COVID-19 placed on the general population. In fact, they are likely more heavily impacted as they are one of the “essential workers” that must continue to work and respond to calls for service while others shelter at home. As first responders normally and more so during the shutdown, they may experience increased stress risk due to the prolonged threat of virus exposure and stay-at-home ordinance compliance enforcement. Compounding normal risk factors, COVID-19 social distancing policies have resulted in numerous changes and alterations in protocols including requirements to wear personal protection equipment (PPE), altered patrolling routines, and changes to shift schedules and work hours that drive workplace stress. In addition to the direct impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic on officer wellbeing, law enforcement is likely to experience increased high-stress encounters with individuals suffering from mental health problems aggravated by fear of contagion, economic uncertainty, resource shortages, and isolation. First responders may react more strongly to a crisis such as COVID-19 due to their responsibility for maintaining public safety, risk of exposure through interactions with the community, and the concern of exposing family members to the virus.

COVID-19’s Likely Impact on Officer Stress Extrapolated through Historical Context

COVID-19 refers to the infectious disease that results from a novel coronavirus that was not identified until an outbreak in Wuhan, China in December of 2019. Pathogens in the coronavirus family may cause acute respiratory infections and difficulty breathing. The illness resulting from the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is marked by respiratory symptoms (congestion, cough, difficulty breathing) as well as hyperthermia and exhaustion. COVID-19 effects seem to be exacerbated by underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and cardiopathy. At the time of writing, COVID-19 has infected over 6 million people including 1.7 million in the United States (WHO, 2020 ). COVID-19 has spread quickly as interpersonal transmission can occur through respiratory droplets and contaminated surfaces. As a result, many jurisdictions have enacted stay-at-home orders, limited work to essential functions, and created social distancing directives. These decisions have seemingly slowed the spread of COVID-19; still, over 350,000 have died due to complications connected to the illness including over 100,000 Americans (WHO, 2020 ). These figures are projected to double by the end of July, 2020.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic impact on policing strategies and mental health in criminal justice settings is matched in magnitude by only a limited number of events in the past century. As research on COVID-19 and the interrelated public policy and health ramifications of both the disease and the coordinated response is still in its infancy, reference to earlier crises that significantly altered law enforcement practices, namely the start of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s and the attacks of September 11, 2001, provide reference context. These previous large-scale distressing events affected perceptions of safety, job stress, and standard practices of law enforcement officers including the need to address traumatized members of the public. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to also affect these domains, but the form of those effects may be distinct per the unknown nature and already comparatively longer duration of the pandemic than some prior national traumatic events.

One of the closest analogies to the current law enforcement climate is the spread of HIV in the 1980s. While HIV is manageable today, uncertainty reigned three decades ago. Law enforcement officers were tasked with enforcing policies in an environment of misunderstood risk. Flavin ( 1998 ) describes a pervasive fear of HIV among officers who generally overestimated their occupational risk. A perceived inability to manage HIV risk intensified fear (Jermier, Gaines, & McIntosh, 1989 ). Officers of that era had limited and evolving information about transmission (Leinen, 1993 ), much like those policing during the height of COVID-19. Perhaps law enforcement officers today are not dissuaded from assisting injured citizens proximate to the prior fear of contracting HIV, but encounters with the public no doubt generate similar stress as reports already describe officers dying after contracting COVID-19. Thompson and Marquart’s ( 1998 ) study indicated that HIV risk was a significant stressor among law enforcement officers although training diminished these concerns while Robinson, Sigman, and Wilson ( 1997 ) suggest it may have contributed to PTSD among officers. Assuming policing prior to heightened understanding of HIV serves as a valid analogy for law enforcement stress during COVID-19, it is clear that an exploration of how COVID-19 has affected officer stress and behavior is warranted. Similarly, officers may benefit from increased resources directed towards assisting them and their family with stress management during this time of crisis.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 also may serve as reference for how broader world issues impact officer stress throughout the country. Following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, numerous police and other first responders risked their safety and rushed into unknown danger to assist the public. Similar results from samples of these heroes indicate mental health concerns resulted from this service. One-third of the officers responding from the Arlington County Police Department reported significantly heightened post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms years after responding to the Pentagon (Robbers & Jenkins, 2005 ). Over 20% of New York responders reported PTSD symptoms with 5.4% reaching diagnostic thresholds over four years after the attack; 40% of these officers reported needing mental healthcare (Pietrzak et al., 2012 ). Suicidal ideation among officers also increased (Violanti, Castellano, O'Rourke, & Paton, 2006 ). However, that day’s event affected stress levels of officers beyond these locations. Studies demonstrate increases in police stress in other cities in the year following the incident as well as a shifting of perceived major sources of stress. Whereas data collected prior to 9/11 reported that harming a civilian and the safety of fellow officers were prime concerns/stresses, data from similar respondents collected a year after 9/11 indicated that police felt dealing with terrorist or hate groups and being prepared for riots were foremost among their concerns (Stevens, 2004 ). Further, the attacks prompted numerous organizational changes within police forces which exacerbated stress (Marks & Sun, 2007 ).

Terrorist threats may not on the surface appear an apt comparison for a viral pathogen like COVID-19, but the psychological connection is clear. Both are invisible dangers; officers can no more see the intention of citizens than they can SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19. In each case, threats can come from anywhere – the person with the bulging backpack standing in front of the museum could be carrying a bomb or the person clearing their throat could be showing the initial signs of a COVID-19 infection. Each concern requires hypervigilance as one exposure, or one missed threat, can be deadly for a large number of citizens. In each situation, there has been distrust for organizations providing data. Police viewed limited information from federal sources as a source of stress following the 9/11 attacks (Stevens, 2004 ) and the integrity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have been challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analogy also provides context to expect that the COVID-19 pandemic may disproportionately affect stress levels of women in law enforcement as large gender differences in police stress resulted from 9/11 (Bowler et al., 2010 ). It also suggests that strong social integration may minimize occupational stress and mental health issues resulting from COVID-19 as officers that were better connected to others were less affected by terrorist threats and showed greater resiliency (Schwarzer, Bowler, & Cone, 2014 ).

Policing in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Occupational Stressors

Reactions of the law enforcement community to COVID-19 thus far have been near ubiquitous. Efforts were made to procure and utilize protective personal equipment (PPE) and officers have encouraged and enforced social distancing. Depending on the size of the agency and the available resources, police departments have marked off briefing rooms with spots for officers to sit six feet away from each other or even held briefings outside – where the virus is thought to be less likely to spread. Discretion when dealing with the public is at a premium as is avoiding physical proximity in situations where a response or arrest can be avoided. For example, many urban agencies have instructed officers to conduct fewer traffic stops and avoid unnecessary interpersonal interactions (Mohler et al., 2020 ). Overall, calls for service may have slightly decreased during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (Campedelli, Aziani, & Favarin, 2020 ; Mohler et al., 2020 ), but certain offenses have been increasingly reported including vandalism and domestic violence (Mohler et al., 2020 ) as well as theft of medical equipment (Hulett, 2020). Though service calls may have decreased per shelter-in-place guidelines, the burden on individual officers ostensibly increases as indicated by over 1000 virus cases within the NYPD - 15% of the workforce reporting being sick and unavailable to serve (ABC, 2020 ).

In addition to carrying the burden for stricken colleagues, COVID-19 presented officers with novel and exacerbated stressors. First, they were expected to implement new policies to ensure social distancing while stay-at-home directives were challenged on political, economic, and legal grounds. As the agents of new and unpopular restrictions, officers may have experienced additional anxiety and disapproval from the citizenry served (Shirzad, Abbasi Farajzadeh, Hosseini Zijoud, & Farnoosh, 2020 ). Second, they were required to adapt existing practices to “virus reality.” Community and offender programs, service call responses, and patrol practices had to be adapted to limit exposure and ensure enough officers remained healthy to maintain public safety. These adaptations, oft centered on limiting interpersonal contact, potentially created cognitive dissonance in instances where officers avoided serving the public or making a minor arrest to limit their own exposure. Third, agencies clearly suffered from shortages in PPE. Panic following COVID-19’s spread cleared masks, gloves, sanitizer and other needed supplies from inventory. Officers likely experienced stress through the limited availability of PPE or by using items they understood to be needed by the general public. The lack of these resources, per the extension of the logic of a general resource shortfall, is more problematic in disadvantaged rural areas. Fourth, the COVID-19 pandemic itself was a traumatic event, presenting consistent risk of bodily harm and requiring officers to be increasingly hypervigilant of their own environment. The daily exposure to stress, safety protocols, and social distancing policies may have limited their capacity to engage in positive coping strategies.

The threat of COVID-19 and the challenges of social distancing policies presents a particular problem for small rural law enforcement agencies. These groups have fewer resources and are less likely to employ individuals that specialize in health policy, mental health management, and information distribution to guide both the workforce and population it serves through the pandemic. Large, urban agencies have partnered together to share information during the coronavirus pandemic through the Police Executive Research Forum’s (PERF) Daily COVID-19 Reports ( https://www.policeforum.org/coronavirus#daily ) and resources like the American Society for Evidence-Based Policing’s (ASEBP) COVID Portal for sharing response strategies and new policies ( https://www.americansebpcovid.org/ ). While rural agencies can also gain access to these resources, their smaller size means they are less likely to have officers with connections to these organizations.

Law enforcement training in rural agencies is also likely less dynamic and adaptive to developing needs. Larger workforces allow training that has smaller incremental costs and there is specialization of activities. Thus, an emerging issue, like the need to adapt to a global viral pandemic is likely to put a disproportionate strain on officers in rural jurisdictions with ritualistic agency culture. Their organizational size limits leverage for acquiring resources such as personal protective equipment and tools to enforce social distancing protocols. Further, it may hinder the resiliency and the adaptation of existing programs to the evolving needs of citizens during windows of social upheaval. The pandemic paired with limited training and resources to deal with its consequences are likely to have an extensive and long-term impact on rural law enforcement officer mental health.

While rural jurisdictions may lack the resources and specialized work forces that can assist with reactivity to a threat like COVID-19, urban areas are disproportionately the site of protests, riots, and social unrest during a period of extreme stress. Tension related to stay-at-home orders escalated throughout the early stages of the pandemic with many citizens becoming concerned about the financial repercussions of lockdowns. Large groups descended on state capitals and other large cities to protest for the opportunity to work and earn an income. This created a demand for law enforcement to manage potentially violent groups without curtailing their First Amendment rights. Ensuring safety during large scale protest is generally a stressful challenge but is enhanced during a viral pandemic. Law enforcement was responsible for both providing a presence to deter violent and unruly behavior, but also to encourage social distancing and use of face masks and other protective wear—an unprecedented dual responsibility. Further, racial tension towards police escalated during the pandemic due to the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of officers in Kentucky and Minnesota, respectively. Urban centers drew crowds protesting, rioting, and looting; officers in large agencies became both the focus of acrimony and responsible for ensuring unruly crowds’ safety from a viral threat.

Proliferation and Extension of COVID-19 Stress in Law Enforcement

While not intended to describe the behavior of police, Slocum’s ( 2010 ) exploration of behavioral continuity in the context of strain theories provides a framework for how the COVID-19 may influence officer stress, mental health, and performance long after any vaccine is introduced. First, Slocum ( 2010 ) describes the negative impact of past and existing stressors on individuals’ ability to deal with new stressors and challenges. A reasonable inference would be that officers dealing with stressors associated with COVID-19 response are less ready to deal with new stressors. While COVID-19 policing stressors may impair officers’ functions from a psychological perspective, the omnipresent stress of policing during an uncertain pandemic is likely to impact neurotransmitter and stress hormone levels resulting in increased susceptibility to stress and overreactions (e.g., Fishbein, 2001 ). Put simply, dealing with evolving regulations, ever-changing departmental policies, enforcing unpopular shutdowns, and the fear of contracting COVID-19 likely diminish officers’ ability to deal with the numerous other stresses that characterize their profession.

Second, Slocum’s ( 2010 ) stress proliferation arguments can be applied to COVID-19 policing in both primary and secondary forms. Dealing with COVID-related demands and uncertainty itself presents as a source of stress, but also clearly exacerbates other job stressors that may impact mental health. Dealing with an unruly citizen becomes increasingly challenging due to social distancing expectations and protective gear. Another example of primary proliferation is COVID-19 affecting shift schedules and work rotations in an atypical manner (meant to minimize the chance of numerous officers being infected at once), when inconsistent work schedules already serve as a significant source of officer stress and fatigue. Secondary stress proliferation also likely occurs in situations where COVID-19 policing precautions affect family life. Officers exposed to the public may have chosen to avoid extended contact with family in case they contracted COVID-19 and be limited in their options to cope with stress in the manner they did prior to COVID-19. Thus, COVID-19 policing potentially impacts officer stress in domains outside of the work, intensifying the potential need for stress management and mental health assistance.

Police Productivity in the Midst of a Pandemic

While COVID-19’s largest impact on policing has likely been on organizational protocols and officer mental health, the stress endured during the pandemic has likely had a deleterious effect on officer productivity, efficiency, and ability to perform social outreach functions. Moon and Jonson ( 2012 ) indicate that officer stress is inversely linked to job commitment—those that experience more job-related stress are less committed to their position as a law enforcement officers. Wolfe, Rojek, Manjarrez, and Rojek ( 2018 ) similarly found that uncertainty over the future of policing was a significant factor in understanding officers’ job satisfaction. An extended increase in stress, as well as uncertainty surrounding the future of policing, during the COVID-19 pandemic likely impacted the dedication and resiliency of current officers. Further, job stressors directly impact performance indicators (Shane, 2010 ) suggesting that COVID-19 may have impaired some officers’ ability to respond to calls for service. It remains to be seen whether the pandemic will result in increased officer turnover, but as extant research points to stressors facilitating burnout among officers (Russell, Cole, & Jones III, 2014 ), it is likely jurisdictions will employ a less experienced workforce in the upcoming years.

Acknowledging the potential relationship between COVID-related officer stress and productivity, performance is further impacted by safety protocols that limit interaction or simply require officers’ attention. Each moment that officers spend stocking, preparing, donning, and discarding personal protective equipment is a moment that is not spent completing essential functions. Equipment may impair field of vision, breathing, and grip on objects hindering officer functions. The expectation that uniformed officers will encourage social distancing and enforce lockdown directives requires time that distracts from other obligations; as such, performance measures such as clearance rates may suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 Stress and Police Misconduct

In addition to reduced police productivity, we are likely to see more incidents of police misconduct. By the nature of the occupation, police officers must uphold high standards of ethical behavior, but police misconduct is associated with increases in organizational stressors (Bishopp, Worrall, & Piquero, 2016 ). These are likely to increase during the uncertainty and increased protocols during a pandemic. Furthering these challenges, police officers are the face of the government on the street. That is, they are likely the only direct representative of the government and its laws that many people interact with. As community tensions have increased and citizens voice greater resistance to stay-at-home mandates and business restrictions, police officers are forced to deal with implementing unpopular rules that they did not create.

One of the more stressful roles assumed by law enforcement is crowd control in an unplanned and unrehearsed situation. While a planned political function with detailed organization may not introduce large amounts of stress on officers, a more chaotic event without clear boundaries, drills, and for which citizens have no awareness of normative procedures is likely to be seen as extremely stressful (Garbarino et al., 2012 ). Sporting celebrations, unforeseen weather emergencies, and riots each present challenges that accumulate stress on officers and may encourage or facilitate misconduct. The stress-creating unknown and unrehearsed nature of these events was compounded by the lack of precedent—protests of social distancing and shutdown orders are unlike any other of the modern era. Groups assembling to vie for their right to interact with others were violating orders that regulated assembly and group size. Additionally, due to the stated position of these protests, most ignored best practices for reducing the spread of COVID-19 by not leaving six feet of distance between themselves and police officers, as well as not wearing a mask. In one iconic photo, a protestor at the state capitol in Michigan leans in and screams in the face of two Michigan State Police officers. It is easy to see how these officers would be stressed that in performing their duties, they were potentially exposing themselves to the virus. Police were forced to adapt to protect protestors from their compatriot’s viral loads.

While large protests were common in larger cities, they also appeared in other areas across the country in the form of challenges to governmental directives (e.g., non-essential business remaining open/reopening in opposition to state mandates). Further exacerbating officer stress was the aforementioned protests of racial injustice directly following those focused on governmental intrusion into business. Just as general strain theory predicts that individuals placed under severe strain will respond with maladaptive coping mechanisms such as crime, officers facing continued stress through repeated protests and potential viral exposure, coupled with serving in the low control environment that characterized by rioting, may engage in maladaptive deviant behaviors in the form of police misconduct. Officers targeted as a result of other officers’ behavior or governmental lockdowns are likely to feel angry and act to protect themselves.

Some organizational strains can be reduced by administrators, but increased community tension, and the fear and uncertainty related to COVID-19 creates additional stress and opportunities to engage in problematic coping behaviors and misconduct. Police misconduct has been the focus of researchers and policy makers prior to COVID-19 and additional efforts to reduce stress and increase training to promote ethical conduct have already been implemented by a number of agencies.

For example, there are some police training programs designed to combat ethical violations and promote officer wellbeing. To address widespread corruption and misconduct the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) created the Ethical Policing is Courageous (EPIC) peer intervention program which encourages active bystandership with the goal of reducing negative behaviors and officer misconduct in the NOPD (Aronie & Lopez, 2017 ; Morgan, Murphy, & Horwitz, 2017 ; Staub, 2019 ). The main focus of the training is to encourage active bystander peers to step in when officers first start down a path of deviance (Staub, 2018 ; Staub, 2019 ). This intervention is intended to encourage officers to stop their fellow officer from engaging in misconduct that could potentially cost their job and erode public trust in the police department. Additionally, the training also focuses on wellbeing to encourage prosocial coping mechanisms and active bystandership can help to reduce alcohol abuse and other unhealthy habits resulting in a positive impact on officer’s mental health. Although this training is promising and could help stem misconduct and increased stress caused by a pandemic, it has yet to be evaluated.

Support of Officer Stress and Mental Health during a Pandemic

Several initiatives have been undertaken to improve officer mental health which continues to be a funding priority for the National Institute of Justice. Among the promising avenues for improving mental health are programs that target organizational fairness. Officers routinely report treatment at the hands of command staff and immediate supervisors as a primary source of stress in policing (Brown & Campbell, 1990 ; Collins & Gibbs, 2003 ; Crank & Caldero, 1991 ). Furthermore, in the face of increasing uncertainty, improved treatment at the hands of supervisors can improve police officers’ job satisfaction (Wolfe et al., 2018 ). Thus, programs that improve leaderships’ ability to increase fairness in the workplace should have positive effects on officers’ mental health and job satisfaction.

Other methods of improving officer mental health include programs that encourage officers to positively cope through activities such as yoga and meditation (e.g., Tactical Yoga, Yoga for First Responders, and Cop to Yoga). Other programs have encouraged officers to talk to therapists regarding the mental strain of policing. However, these programs are often criticized as the hyper-masculine culture of policing discourages officers to seek external help. Accordingly, programs that target positive scoping skills from within the department or through peer networks is often recommended. As officers continue to deal with the stress of potential viral exposure of the coming months, it will be important for departmental leadership to reduce stress as much as possible, and for officers to identify positive coping strategies.

Officer Resiliency and Returning to Pre-Pandemic Baselines

Resilience is the ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity and stress and return to a positive state of mental health and well-being through coping strategies (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2015 ). Resiliency requires a holistic approach to wellness with a focus on the body, mind, and spirit (Goerling, 2012 ). Police officers are often exposed to a variety of life-threatening experiences including natural disasters, accidents, fires, and violent crimes (Arnetz, Nevedal, Lumley, Backman, & Lublin, 2009 ). These events can have a detrimental impact on first responders and result in mental health problems and PTSD (Hartley et al., 2011 ). Even more challenging, if the traumatic circumstance isn’t a singular event, but daily reinforced occupational stress over time due to a prolonged crisis, resiliency becomes a sustained process to try and maintain healthy prosocial behaviors.

There is evidence that police training has the potential to promote resilience and reduce stress. For example, in an experimental design, police training prior to critical incident police work simulations found through biomarkers and self-report evaluations that officers who received prior training had significantly less negative mood, less heart rate reactivity, a larger increase in antithrombin, and better performances than those without prior training (Arnetz et al., 2009 ). Although this training showed a physical reduction in stress and benefits in the short run, long term benefits were not assessed.

COVID-19 will have long lasting impacts on society and police departments will likely have to permanently alter some policing protocols as a result. As people start getting out in public more, police departments will need to reestablish community relationships and develop strategies to deal with individuals who have been economically impacted and address increased mental health issues in the general population. A strong focus on community policing and crisis intervention training will be essential in successful post-pandemic policing.

Moving Forward: Quantifying COVID-19 Effects and Providing Officer Support

A global crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly affected law enforcement practices and the mental health of law enforcement officers. As such, it is critical to quantify the scope of these impacts in order to justify and properly target the provision of resources that allow agencies and individuals to weather the storm. Further, an understanding of COVID-19 effects will enable a more informed response to future crises in order to retain law enforcement effectiveness and avoid detrimental effects on law enforcement mental health. While COVID-related precautions are being labeled “the new normal,” it is imperative that steps be taken to ensure that pandemic worsened job stress levels not become “the new normal” for law enforcement officers.

We offer a number of recommendations for researchers to help understand this phenomenon. First, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on officer stress must be quantified. As the events of 2020 were unforeseen, it was impossible for researchers to have planned a longitudinal study of the pandemic’s effects beginning before its onset. As such, it is necessary to replicate data collected on law enforcement stress, mental health, and performance before the pandemic. Care must be taken to ensure a comparable sample or to draw data from the same sampling frame. Within such studies it is not only relevant to determine if an event increased law enforcement stress, but also if it shifted the source of job-related stressors (e.g., Stevens, 2004 ). Additionally, stress in other life domains, as well as healthy and unhealthy coping, should be quantified as major stressors as the COVID-19 response may proliferate into other areas of officers’ lives (Slocum, 2010 ).

Second, identification of officer characteristics and behaviors linked to successful coping following this traumatic event is key. Certain psychological traits or skills developed during trainings related to mental health may have empowered more positive responses to stressors. The provision of similar training programs may assist other officers in dealing with future unforeseen pandemics while awareness of traits linked to successful stress responses may provide insight in hiring processes. More importantly, the identification of characteristics linked to less effective management of COVID-related stress may assist departments in directing resources towards their officers in most need of mental health services.

Third, studies should focus on agency responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. While numerous studies of this type are likely underway, the general focus is likely on physical health issues and response to calls for service. An understanding of how law enforcement groups looked to protect their own members’ mental health during a time of crisis is needed so that the actions of successful agencies can be replicated by others across the country.

In addition to researching the impact of COVID-19 on officer wellbeing, this information should be utilized to adapt and develop future training protocols to help first responders and police officers. In the wake of this unprecedented situation, it is likely that many agencies were caught unprepared for the mental stress that their officers would experience. However, with scientists already discussing second waves and future outbreaks, now is the time to prepare officers for these situations. In our view, this requires two primary paths forward for policing agencies: (1) departments must focus on being logistically prepared for viral outbreaks through the stockpiling of PPE and the development of emergency plans for how to police during a pandemic and (2) departments must provide officers with training to improve skills for positive coping in the face of extreme stress. As noted above, uncertainty can be a major source of stress. By ensuring that the department is logistically prepared for an outbreak with PPE and plans for altering policing strategies in future pandemics, officers should experience less uncertainty and less stress. Furthermore, while it is impossible to completely remove stress from these types of situations, providing training on positive coping skills should help officers to deal with the stress they do face without the side effects of increased burnout, poor mental health, and unhealthy behaviors such as alcoholism.

Biographies

is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology and also of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research and teaching focuses on criminological theory and substance use with a particular emphasis on novel and emerging drugs. He also explores health-related criminological issues, peer influences on delinquency, and biosocial criminology. He coauthored Emerging Trends in Drug Use and Distribution and his works have appeared in journals such as Pediatrics, Addictive Behaviors, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, and Justice Quarterly .

Bryan Lee Miller, PhD

is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Clemson University and recent Fulbright Scholar at Tampere University (Finland). His work has evaluated drug abuse, co-occuring mental illnes and substance abuse, and identification of interactive criminogenic factors and risk factors. He has worked on multiple Department of Justice funded projects to develop law enforcement-led justice and mental health programs. He is Chair of the Drug & Alcohol Research Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and President-elect of the Southern Criminal Justice Association.

Kyle McLean, PhD

is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Clemson University. Dr. McLean is also a National Institute of Justice Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science Academic. His research interests are in policing, criminological theory, and social psychology. His recent work has been published in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and the British Journal of Criminology.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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University of Idaho murders 1 year later: Where the case stands

Four students were killed in an off-campus house on Nov. 13, 2022.

Monday marks one year since four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in a gruesome home invasion that garnered intrigue from people across the nation.

In the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, roommates Kaylee Goncalves , Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle's boyfriend Ethan Chapin , were killed inside the girls' off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho. Two other roommates survived.

MORE: Idaho college murders: The complete timeline of events

After an intensive six-week search for a suspect, 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested on Dec. 30 at his family's Pennsylvania home.

Here's what you need to know as the case against Kohberger moves forward :

The shocking crime

One of the surviving roommates said she woke up around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, from what sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog in one of the third-floor bedrooms, according to court documents.

"A short time" after, the roommate said "she heard who she thought was Goncalves say something to the effect of 'there's someone here,'" the documents said. But that could have been Kernodle on her phone because records showed she was on TikTok at about 4:12 a.m., the affidavit said.

MORE: Lawyer for Idaho college killings suspect Bryan Kohberger says he was driving alone night of murders

The roommate said "she looked out of her bedroom but did not see anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house," the documents said. "She opened her door a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kernodle's room."

The roommate "then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of 'it's ok, I'm going to help you,'" according to the documents.

The roommate said she opened her door again after she heard the crying -- and then saw a "figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her," who she described as "5'10" or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows," and who "walked past" her "towards the back sliding glass door" as the roommate stood in "frozen shock," according to a police affidavit.

Who were the victims?

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, were lifelong best friends and inseparable. Goncalves was set to graduate in December 2022 and move to Texas.

Goncalves' sister, Alivea Goncalves, considered Mogen a sister, too. She said she was comforted by the fact that the best friends were in the same bed together in their final moments.

"If I couldn't have been there to hold their hands and to take that pain from them, at least they had each other," she told ABC News.

The two other victims were 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin.

Chapin was a triplet. His brother and sister also attend the University of Idaho.

Chapin and Kernodle were the "perfect pair" who had an "unstoppable, loving relationship," a surviving roommate said in a statement in December.

"They both would look at each other with so much love," she said.

Pieces of evidence

After the victims were discovered, authorities reviewed surveillance video from the area and saw the suspect's white Hyundai Elantra go by the victims' house three times, before entering the area for a fourth time at 4:04 a.m, according to the affidavit.

Police said they traced the car's travel that night back to nearby Pullman, Washington, where the suspect lived while attending Washington State.

Kohberger's phone was tracked heading to Moscow before the attack and as the driver of the white Elantra returned to Pullman. However, the phone was off from 2:47 a.m. to 4:48 a.m., which "is consistent with Kohberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide," the document said.

MORE: Idaho authorities probe Amazon 'click activity' for knives possibly connected to college killings

His phone was near the victims' house at least 12 times before the murders, at least as far back as August, the document said.

DNA from the suspect was also recovered on a knife sheath left on Mogen's bed, according to the documents.

Where does the case stand?

Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The former Ph.D. student declined to offer a plea at his arraignment in May, so the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

MORE: Trial for Idaho college killings suspect Bryan Kohberger delayed indefinitely

Kohberger's lawyers have said their client wasn't in the home where the homicides occurred and was driving around alone that night.

In August, Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, indefinitely delaying what was supposed to be an Oct. 2 start date.

A new trial date has not been set.

What possible hurdles are ahead during trial?

The DNA discovered on the button snap of the knife sheath that was found near Mogen's body is a critical linchpin for the prosecution in what is a largely circumstantial case.

That DNA, authorities argued, undeniably links Kohberger to the crime scene, saying that DNA "showed a statistical match" with a cheek swab taken directly from Kohberger after his arrest.

Kohberger's attorneys have attempted to cast doubt on the strength of investigators' evidence and whether it pointed irrefutably to just their client, including the DNA. The defense has repeatedly asked for more information on the genealogical analyses used to zero in on Kohberger, and have pushed back on investigators' analysis that the DNA is a statistical match.

Kohberger's attorneys also highlight what they called a "total lack of DNA evidence" from the victims in Kohberger's home or car.

"There are so many layers that make this an extraordinary case -- and the defense is going to attack any aspect of it that they see as vulnerable," David Calviello, a former New Jersey prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney, told ABC News in August. "It makes sense for them to take shots at how certain evidence was presented to the grand jury -- whether there were missed steps, cut corners, chain of custody problems, contamination -- or not. "

The knife used in the murders has not been recovered.

A series of now-unsealed search warrant documents show investigators have sought records of Amazon purchases and click history data for an Amazon customer including "all detailed customer click activity pertaining to knives and accessories," as well as a long list of information that could flesh out the customer's full shopping movements and interests on the site, like items that were wish-listed or saved for later. If prosecutors can link Kohberger to the purchase of a knife that could have been used in the killings, experts say that could help bolster their case.

What will happen to the house?

The University of Idaho announced in February that the house where the four students were killed would be torn down, with university President Scott Green calling it "a healing step."

In June, a university spokesperson said the school planned to demolish the house before students returned to campus in the fall.

In July, the university announced a sudden halt to the demolition plans as they removed asbestos and lead from the home -- and amid objections from some of the victims' families who expressed concern that demolishing the house before Kohberger's trial could cause unanticipated problems for prosecutors as they try to secure a guilty verdict.

About two weeks after Kohberger waived his speedy right to a trial in August, university officials decided they would hold off on tearing down the home until at least the end of the fall semester, which ends in mid-December.

With no new trial date set, prosecutors asked the University of Idaho for access to the house.

The university said FBI agents would be at the house on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 "to get documentation to construct visual and audio exhibits and a physical model of the home."

"While the university still intends to demolish the home, it will not be done this semester," the university said on Oct. 31.

The families

Ethan Chapin, who was a triplet, had been planning his 21st birthday with his siblings "forever," his parents said. Last month, his brother, Hunter, and sister, Maizie, turned 21 without him.

As the Chapins face one year without Ethan, they said they plan on acknowledging Nov. 13 with a private fundraiser for their foundation, Ethan's Smile Foundation, to help provide scholarships to post-high school students so that they can follow their dreams. The Chapins said they can't think of a better way to honor their son than to support education.

"Ethan stood for love, kindness, laughter and loyalty," his mother, Stacy Chapin, told ABC News. "He was the very best."

Kaylee Goncalves' dad, Steve Goncalves, said Kaylee's younger siblings are now grappling with their own birthdays. He said "they don't want to be older than their sister."

To Steve Goncalves, Nov. 13 is not an anniversary.

"This is more like a memorial -- some type of an event that you have to look at and think about, but it's not something that you ever look forward to," he told ABC News.

"My daughter has allowed me to meet people across the world through her life and memory and her beauty. And I'll thank her one day when I see her," Steve Goncalves said. "I'll tell her how much she impacted the world and how proud of her I am."

FOLLOW THE PODCAST: " The King Road Killings: An Idaho Murder Mystery " from ABC News, available on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or your preferred podcast player.

ABC News' Kayna Whitworth, Nick Cirone and Timmy Truong contributed to this report.

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Citigroup Remains A Buy With The 2024 Stress Test Results

• Besides attractive valuation and a healthy growth outlook, the stress test results provided additional factors to support a bull thesis on C.
• The test results suggest the overall health of the banking sector and also C’s resilience in the case of a severe recession.
• The combination of attractive valuation and a sizable total shareholder yield (cash dividend plus stock buybacks) points to a skewed return/risk profile.
• Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of Envision Early Retirement get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate. Learn More »

Andres Victorero

C stock’s 2024 stress test results

I last covered Citigroup (NYSE: NYSE: C ) with a buy rating in early April after its Q1 earnings report (see the screenshot below). At that time, my bull thesis was anchored in the following three considerations:

Strong Q1 results, which beat market expectations on both GAAP EPS and revenue. Strong CET1 ratio of 13.5%, providing the financial strength to support growth opportunities. Reasonable valuations (especially in terms of the P/TBV ratio) and generous capital returns.

Since then, a key development was the release of its 2024 stress test results. The significance of the tests warrants an updated look at the stock. The remainder of this article will summarize my key takeaways from the stress report. After evaluating these results, my conclusion is to maintain my bull rating. As you will see in my details, I think the above factors considered in my earlier article remain valid and the stress test results provided a few more positives to support the bull thesis.

Seeking Alpha

Stress test results overview

I highly encourage investors interested in banking stocks to read the full stress test report released by the Federal Reserve Board (“FRB”). Overall, my interpretation of the results is that the banking sector, especially for the global systemically important banks such as C (aka, the GSIBs), is quite healthy. As the FRB commented (the emphases were added by me),

The results of the Federal Reserve Board's annual bank stress test showed that while large banks would endure greater losses than last year's test, they are well positioned to weather a severe recession and stay above minimum capital requirements. All 31 banks tested remained above their minimum common equity tier 1 (CET1) capital requirements during the hypothetical recession, after absorbing total projected hypothetical losses of nearly $685 billion. Under stress, the aggregate CET1 capital ratio—which provides a cushion against losses—is projected to decline by 2.8 percentage points, from 12.7 % to 9.9 % . While this is a greater decline than last year's, it's within the range of recent stress tests.

Against this overall background, let me dive into the results more specific to C. As you can see from the chart below (last row), C’s CET1 ratio was 13.4% as of 2023 Q4 (and its 2024 Q1 CET1 ratio is even higher at 13.5%). Thus, its CET1 ratio was noticeably above the average ratio of 12.7% of the 31 banks tested. In the case of a hypothetical recession, C’s CET1 ratio is projected to decline to 9.7%. As aforementioned, the aggregate CET1 capital ratio for all 31 banks is projected to decline by 2.8%, from 12.7% to 9.9%. Thus, C would suffer a slightly larger impact than the group on average (as you can also see more visually from the second chart below). Its projected CET1 ratio would be about 20 basis points below the aggregate under this simulated scenario (9.7% vs. 9.9%). I'm not too concerned for several reasons. First, the difference is relatively small. Secondly, C’s projected CET1 ratio under this hypothetical recessionary scenario is still well above the minimum requirements and also above other large banks. For example, the ratio projected for Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) is 9.1%, for Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ) is 8.5%, and for Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC ) is 8.1%. Finally, C’s latest operating metrics are quite respectable, in my view. Besides a slightly higher CET1 ratio shown in its Q1 earnings report, the bank reported a solid ROE and a healthy growth in its tangible book value (of 3% to $86.67 per share), which leads me to its valuation assessment next.

Federal Reserve Board

C stock: Valuation, dividend yield, and buybacks

Despite the strength of its balance sheet and respectable operation metrics, the stock is trading at an attractive valuation. As aforementioned, its tangible book value sits around $86.67 per share (see its balance sheet below). At the stock price as of this writing, this translates into P/TBV ratio of 0.708x only. It's slightly higher than that at my last writing due to the price appreciation since then, but still a very attractive level in my view. In terms of P/E, the stock is trading at ~10x of its FWD EPS, also a very reasonable multiple both in absolute and relative terms.

In addition to the attractive valuation, other return drivers worth mentioning are its dividends and share repurchases. C has been paying out dividends regularly in the past (see the top panel of the next chart below). Its dividend yield is on average 3.7% in the past five years, a quite attractive yield. In addition to cash dividends, C has also been an active (and quite large) buyer of its own shares. As shown in the bottom panel of the chart below, its net common buyback yield averaged about 6% in the past five years and hovered around 8% in 2022. Thus, repurchases have played a much larger role than cash dividends for capital returns to shareholders (and it is also my preferred mechanism due to tax considerations) in recent years. When the dividends and buybacks are considered, the total shareholder yield already approached 10% in recent years.

Looking ahead, I don’t expect the buybacks to be as aggressive as it has been in 2022. For one thing, the stock is even more cheaply valued in 2022 (with P/TBV ratios reaching as low as 0.5x). The Federal Reserve's revised Basel III endgame rule may add further uncertainties to its future stock buyback program. However, given its solid earnings and capital position (as reflected in the CET1 ratio discussed above), I think a buyback yield of around 3% is totally sustainable. Combined with the current dividend yield of 3.45%, the total shareholder yield is already 6%-plus, providing sizable downside protection.

Other risks and final thoughts

In terms of downside risks, C faces all the risks common to other money-center banks. Most of these risks are macroeconomic in nature and have been the topic of many other SA articles. Thus, I won’t repeat them here anymore. Here, I will just point out a few issues that are more specific to C in my view. Interest rates are an uncertainty for all banks but could have a larger-than-average impact on C. For example, in the past quarter, C reported a sharp increase in interest expense of 42% due to higher rates. The gross interest income was also higher, but to a lesser degree (it rose by about 23%). Also, besides interest expense, the bank is also facing pressure on its non-interest expense. Operating expenses have been edging up recently primarily due to higher compensation and benefits as seen in the chart below. Compensation and benefits totaled $7.7 billion in the March 2024 quarter, about 11% higher than the previous quarter and about 2% higher than a year ago. Investors should pay attention to management’s cost control efforts and their effectiveness.

All told, the goal of this article is to provide an updated assessment of C with its 2024 stress test results. After reviewing the results, my verdict is to keep my buy rating on the stock. I consider the factors in my previous consideration to be still valid (such as attractive valuation and healthy growth outlook). In the meantime, the stress test results provided additional factors to support a bull thesis in my view such as the overall health of the banking sector and also C’s resilience in the case of a severe recession. The combination of a 0.7x P/TBV ratio and a sizable total shareholder yield (cash dividend plus stock buybacks) adds further downside protection.

As you can tell, our core style is to provide actionable and unambiguous ideas from our independent research. If your share this investment style, check out Envision Early Retirement. It provides at least 1x in-depth articles per week on such ideas.

We have helped our members not only to beat S&P 500 but also avoid heavy drawdowns despite the extreme volatilities in BOTH the equity AND bond market.

Join for a 100% Risk-Free trial and see if our proven method can help you too.

This article was written by

Envision Research, aka Lucas Ma, has over 15+ years of investment experience and holds a Masters with in Quantitative Investment and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on renewable energy, both from Stanford University. He also has 30+ years of hands-on experience in high-tech R&D and consulting, housing sector, credit sector, and actual portfolio management.

He leads the investing group Envision Early Retirement along with Sensor Unlimited where they offer proven solutions to generate both high income and high growth with isolated risks through dynamic asset allocation. Features include: two model portfolios - one for short-term survival/withdrawal and one for aggressive long-term growth, direct access via chat to discuss ideas, monthly updates on all holdings, tax discussions, and ticker critiques by request.

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

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The Morning

The week after the debate.

Where does President Biden’s campaign go from here?

By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick

Whatever its ultimate effect on the campaign, the first presidential debate of 2024 certainly did not cast the United States in a favorable light.

It featured two elderly men — one 81, one 78 — who insulted each other and who most Americans wished were not the two major-party candidates for president. One candidate told frequent lies and portrayed the country in apocalyptic terms. The other struggled at times to describe his own policies or complete his sentences.

The image of the nation as some combination of unhinged and doddering was especially striking at a time when the U.S. is supposed to be leading the fight against a rising alliance of autocracies that includes China, Russia and Iran. “I am worried about the image projected to the outside world,” Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote on social media. “It is not an image of leadership. It is an image of terminal decline.”

Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, seemingly compared President Biden’s performance to Marcus Aurelius’ failure to find a competent successor in ancient Rome, which hastened the empire’s decline. “It’s important to manage one’s ride into the sunset,” Sikorski tweeted.

Russian officials — whose recent online behavior suggests that they are rooting for Donald Trump — portrayed the debate as a sign of American weakness and disarray. The result “is good for us,” Dmitri Novikov, a Russian lawmaker, said on state television. “Destabilization inside an adversary is always a good thing.”

Where does the campaign go from here? That’s the subject of today’s newsletter.

Solid vs. shaky

Most Republicans are committed to Trump, even as he continues to tell lies and reject core principles of democracy . The situation with Democrats and Biden is obviously more uncertain.

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