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Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the United States, 1995

Metadata Updated: March 12, 2025

This study was undertaken to provide current information on work and family issues from the police officer's perspective, and to explore the existence and prevalence of work and family training and intervention programs offered nationally by law enforcement agencies. Three different surveys were employed to collect data for this study. First, a pilot study was conducted in which a questionnaire, designed to elicit information on work and family issues in law enforcement, was distributed to 1,800 law enforcement officers representing 21 municipal, suburban, and rural police agencies in western New York State (Part 1). Demographic information in this Work and Family Issues in Law Enforcement (WFILE) questionnaire included the age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, highest level of education, and number of years in law enforcement of each respondent. Respondents also provided information on which agency they were from, their job title, and the number of children and step-children they had. The remaining items on the WFILE questionnaire fell into one of the following categories: (1) work and family orientation, (2) work and family issues, (3) job's influence on spouse/significant other, (4) support by spouse/significant other, (5) influence of parental role on the job, (6) job's influence on relationship with children, (7) job's influence on relationships and friendships, (8) knowledge of programs to assist with work and family issues, (9) willingness to use programs to assist with work and family issues, (10) department's ability to assist officers with work and family issues, and (11) relationship with officer's partner. Second, a Police Officer Questionnaire (POQ) was developed based on the results obtained from the pilot study. The POQ was sent to over 4,400 officers in police agencies in three geographical locations: the Northeast (New York City, New York, and surrounding areas), the Midwest (Minneapolis, Minnesota, and surrounding areas), and the Southwest (Dallas, Texas, and surrounding areas) (Part 2). Respondents were asked questions measuring their health, exercise, alcohol and tobacco use, overall job stress, and the number of health-related stress symptoms experienced within the last month. Other questions from the POQ addressed issues of concern to the Police Research and Education Project -- a sister organization of the National Association of Police Organizations -- and its membership. These questions dealt with collective bargaining, the Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights, residency requirements, and high-speed pursuit policies and procedures. Demographic variables included gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, highest level of education, and number of years employed in law enforcement. Third, to identify the extent and nature of services that law enforcement agencies provided for officers and their family members, an Agency Questionnaire (AQ) was developed (Part 3). The AQ survey was developed based on information collected from previous research efforts, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Part W-Family Support, subsection 2303 [b]), and from information gained from the POQ. Data collected from the AQ consisted of whether the agency had a mission statement, provided any type of mental health service, and had a formalized psychological services unit. Respondents also provided information on the number of sworn officers in their agency and the gender of the officers. The remaining questions requested information on service providers, types of services provided, agencies' obstacles to use of services, agencies' enhancement of services, and the organizational impact of the services.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 2923
Data First Published 2000-05-09T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2006-03-30T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Aicategory Not AI-ready
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id d0104892-89e1-4ec8-bd2a-a6bc7c4ca510
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
Internalcontactpoint {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "Jennifer Scherer", "hasEmail": "mailto:Jennifer.Scherer@usdoj.gov"}
Jcamsystem {"acronym": "OJP_EXT", "id": 8, "name": "External system not available in CSAM"}
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Metadatamodified 9/2/2022 6:22:00 PM
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Sourceidentifier https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02696
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 79a5066cf91808a4aa11f6c238e7d59189b4c556fc265efc912b468204176cfd
Source Schema Version 1.1

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