Police officers’ strategies for coping with the stress of investigating Internet child exploitation.

Abstract

Research shows that Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) investigators cope well with the range of stressors their work exposes them to, but little is known about how they manage to cope. The current study attempts to expand knowledge and address the limitations of prior research by using a broad, open-ended anonymous interviewing strategy that differentiates between individual and organizational coping resources in the first study conducted with Australian investigators. Participants were 32 ICE investigators from all nine Australian jurisdictions. Results were organized thematically in the following headings: selection of ideal applicants, indicators of poor coping and coping strategies. The overriding conclusions and their implications for police managers are discussed.

Examination of the Subjective Well‐Being of Australian Internet Child Exploitation Investigators

“…Moreover, this does not suggest that individual officers do not have sufficient grounds for psychiatric injury claims. To the contrary, it is well established that the investigation of ICE exposes police officers to a range of operational and organisational stressors that can potentially cause them harm (Burns et al., ; Perez et al., ; Powell et al., , ). Rather, the results attest to the resilience of current ICE investigators, as a group, in withstanding the nature of the material they deal with on a daily basis and handling potentially significant sources of negative workplace stress.…”

“…Commonly reported health concerns by ICE investigators include hyper‐vigilance, intrusive recollections, emotional exhaustion and cynicism, insomnia, social withdrawal and relationship problems, weight gain, and increased occurrence of medical problems (Burns et al., ; Krause, ; Perez et al., ; Powell et al., ).…”

Elements Underpinning Successful Implementation of a National Best-Practice Child Investigative Interviewing Framework

“…The reality, according to recent psychometric and qualitative research, is that sexual assault investigators (as a group) cope well with long-term sexual abuse casework and the expectation that they need to move on poses (for some) a significant source of stress (Powell & Tomyn, 2011;Powell & Wright, 2009). Further, maximum tenure creates a situation in which there are few competent staff members in areas where high specialisation is required (Powell, Cassematis, Benson, Smallbone, & Wortley, 2014). Investigative interviewing of children is a highly specialised skill and it can take years to develop the level of interviewer proficiency to handle complex cases, such as those in which children are too frightened or inarticulate to clearly disclose what happened to them (Powell, Fisher, & Wright, 2005).…”

“…The issue of specialisation is even greater in those jurisdictions where the interviewer conducts numerous roles (i.e., the interviewer is also the investigator preparing briefs of evidence), or is working in highly specialised areas of sexual assault such as Internet child exploitation (Powell et al, 2014) and investigation of assault in remote indigenous communities (Mace & Powell, 2012). As the complexity of the skills required becomes greater, so too does the time needed to acquire high-level expertise.…”

“…Team support depends on trust and understanding of the way others relate, cope with and display stress. Relationships take time to develop and thus high staff turnover hampers workplace relationships, creating a major burden for staff members and removing an important avenue of support (Powell et al, 2014).…”