Police Officers’ Best Friend?: An Exploratory Analysis of the Effect of Service Dogs on Perceived Organizational Support in Policing
| Author | Eric L Piza,Kenneth M Quick |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X211044711 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
Special Issue: Are we OK? The State of Wellbeing in Policing
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2022, Vol. 95(1) 127–151
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211044711
journals.sagepub.com/home/pjx
Police Officers’Best Friend?:
An Exploratory Analysis of the
Effect of Service Dogs on
Perceived Organizational
Support in Policing
Kenneth M Quickand Eric L Piza
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA;
The City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, NY, USA
Abstract
This study explored the effectiveness of a novel technique for police departments to
support their officers and promote wellness: the use of service dogs. We evaluated officer
perceptions in two mid-sized, municipal police departments that have wellness prog rams
with a service dog that is permanently assigned to a full-time police officer handler:
Groton and Naugatuck, Connecticut. We assessed six factors believed to influence police
officer wellness including: operational and organizational stress using the Police Stress
Questionnaire; topical stressors including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic,
police use of force and community relations, and police reform efforts; Perceived
Organizational Support (POS); receptivity to service dogs; and willingness to seek as-
sistance for mental health issues. We found evidence that exposure to service dogs is
significantly linked to both POS and receptivity to service dogs in policing. We also found
that officer willingness to seek their department’s assistance regarding mental health
approaches significance with greater exposure to the service dog (p= .07). Although we
found no significant evidence that exposure to service dogs is linked to stress reduction,
we found that police reforms pose a substantial perceived stress on officers in the study.
This finding presents a serious challenge for reformers that risks undermining officer
wellness. Implications of our findings and recommendations for future research are
discussed.
Corresponding author:
Kenneth M Quick, Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 West 59th
Street, New York, NY 10019-1093, USA.
Email: kquick@jjay.cuny.edu
Keywords
Police, police officer, wellness, resiliency, stress, service dogs, human–animal interactions,
police reform, perceived organizational support theory, organizational climate
Introduction
Laymen and professionals alike acknowledge the inherently stressful nature of policing
(Anderson et al., 2002;Talavera-Velasco et al., 2018). A plethora of research indicates
that the operational stressors once thought to be most detrimental to officers, such as risk
of injury and death, are not the leading source of stress. Organizational stressors, such as
favoritism, bureaucracy, and unsupportive supervisory styles, are perceived as more
impactful by police officers (Gershon et al., 2009;McCreary and Thompson, 2006;
Shane, 2010;Trinkner et al., 2016). Both long-term physiological effects, such as heart
disease, and negative mental health effects, such as cynicism and burnout, are the result of
stress on police officers (Anderson et al., 2002;Ermasova et al., 2020;Gilmartin, 2002;
Talavera-Velasco et al., 2018;Violanti et al., 2017). Stress is also thought to contribute to
the frequently discussed high suicide rate in police officers (Queirós et al., 2020;Violanti
et al., 2017). In 2019, nearly five times as many officers took their own lives than died at
the hands of criminals (Barr, 2020;FBI Releases 2019 Statistics on Law Enforcement
Officers Killed in the Line of Duty, 2020).
The ability of police officers to effectively mitigate and respond to stress is signifi-
cantly related to job performance (Shane, 2010) and their restraint when dealing with the
public (Ermasova et al., 2020;Gershon et al., 2009;Goff et al., 2013). Research suggests
reducing stress is of paramount importance in society’s pursuit of improved police
performance and police–community relations (Gilmartin, 2002;Queirós et al., 2020;
Talavera-Velasco et al., 2018;Violanti et al., 2016). Considering the urgent call for reform
in the wake of high-profile incidents, such as the death of George Floyd, police agencies
have a vested interest to ensure officers properly handle stress and a duty to provide stress
coping mechanisms in the workplace.
Recently, promoting officer wellness and stress coping has gained some prominence
(Janssens et al., 2018). Police departments have implemented stress coping techniques,
such as mindfulness, meditation, and yoga, with mixed results (Christopher et al., 2016;
Ermasova et al., 2020). Another new strategy for mitigating the effects of stress on police
officers is the use of service dogs in the organizational environment. The use of dogs has
demonstrated stress and anxiety reduction effects in a variety of other contexts, such as
crime victims and military members with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
(Gonz´
alez Ram´
ırez and Landero Hern´
andez, 2014;Gorrity and Stallones, 1998;Helton,
2009).
Based on previous research findings that stress is detrimental to both officer health and
work performance, and that perceptions of organizational support mitigate the effects of
stress and increase trust, this research seeks to explore the effect of a service dog in police
departments on perceived organizational support, job-related stress, and willingness to
seek mental health support by police officers. This research should appeal to criminal
128 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 95(1)
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