“Risk It Out, Risk It Out”: Occupational and Organizational Stresses in Rural Policing
Abstract
In rural areas, police experience unique work-related health and safety risks attributable to a multitude of factors, ranging from inaccessible backup to navigating inclement weather alongside geographic obstacles. Although the result of institutional and organizational structures, operational (job content) and organizational (job context) risk must be recontextualized in the rural context. In the current study, I contextualize understandings of risk, referring to a lack of safety shaped by either a physical, administrative, legal, or emotional feeling of vulnerability—or a combination of such—for rural officers that results from occupational experiences of understaffing and insufficient material resources. Drawing on transcripts from 14 focus groups with 49 officers across rank, I extrapolate the effects of understaffing on officer experiences of work-role overload and the resulting stress. Findings reveal how officers’ perceptions of risk are impacted by such factors, and how risk is interpreted as either preventable (i.e., organizational) or unavoidable (i.e., operational). In this context, risk knowledges of occupational realities shape the occupational role and well-being of officers working in rural and remote detachments. Preliminary policy implications are presented.
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Organizational stressors (job context) constitute one of the most common and tangible forms of occupational stress impacting PSP and have physiological and cognitive implications.
“Organizational stressors (job context) constitute one of the most common and tangible forms of occupational stress impacting PSP and have undeniable physiological and cognitive implications [16,17,18,20].”
From Canadian Public Safety Personnel and Occupational Stressors: How PSP Interpret Stressors on Duty (2020) · cites this paper as [18]
Operational stress appears inherent to the PSP work context.
“Operational stress appears inherent to the PSP work context [16,17,18,20].”
From Canadian Public Safety Personnel and Occupational Stressors: How PSP Interpret Stressors on Duty (2020) · cites this paper as [18]
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Assessing the Relative Impact of Diverse Stressors among Public Safety Personnel
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“, lower back pain), social life limitations, and the inescapability of work [13,14,26].”
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- Authors
- Ricciardelli, R.
- Affiliations
- Memorial University of Newfoundland (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Ricciardelli, Rosemary
- Venue
- Police Quarterly
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2018-04-25
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 415-439
- ISSN
- 1098-6111 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-745X
- OpenAlex
- W2799846014
- Cited by
- 85
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 40.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Police Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Keywords
- rural policing, occupational stress, risk perception, understaffing, police officer well-being, organizational stress, operational risk
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