The Effects of Police Fatigue

John’s 32 years of experience in law enforcement coupled with his human resource and organizational leadership designations make him a perfect subject matter expert when it comes to police fatigue. John led pivotal cultural changes within the Delaware State Police in areas such as fatigue management, special or secondary employment, and staffing and resource allocation.

Fatigue in law enforcement

Police fatigue is not a new phenomenon. Experts have studied the impact of fatigue for decades, concluding people who are sleep-deprived display impaired cognitive and motor skills comparable to the effects of drinking multiple alcoholic beverages. If a person has been awake for 24 hours, their impairment may be equivalent to a person being legally drunk.

Many high-risk industries, such as aviation, railroad, trucking, maritime, emergency care or nuclear power, have been mandated to regulate operations and work schedules in attempts to minimize the perils of fatigue. However, law enforcement has been spared this codification.  Given the unpredictable nature of police work mixed with challenging schedules, regulation might not be feasible.

What causes fatigue in law enforcement?

Research on law enforcement fatigue has identified that shift work, mandatory overtime, critical incidents, secondary employment, and personal choices are some of the leading causes of police fatigue.

Officer responding to nightime incident

Unanimously, researchers agree the most significant contributing factor of police fatigue is shift work. Most researchers say that while some shift workers adapt to overnight shifts, many report having difficulty sleeping and are regularly fatigued on shift. Police officers are no exception to this. Humans sleep and wake in natural cycles triggered by light called the body’s circadian rhythm. The interruption of the body’s circadian rhythm contributes significantly to why police officers experience fatigue in both the middle of the night and in the middle of the day. 

According to researchers, overtime is another significant contributor to police officer fatigue.  The 24/7 scheduling needs of law enforcement presents staffing challenges. To meet these demands, administrators need their police officers to work overtime. At the same time, officers enjoy the significant earning potential. Efforts to reduce or limit work hours are rare and seldom supported by the law enforcement unions or associations.

According to one study among a group of North American police officers, sleep disorders were common and were associated with an increased risk of adverse health, performance, and safety outcomes. Some aspects of police work, such as night shifts and unpredictable hours, are a challenge to overcome. This being said, if the airline and trucking industries can figure it out, so can police departments.

As I reflect on my shift work years, I had the most difficulty staying awake on day shift. During my 32 years as a State Trooper, I recall numerous times when I worked long hours (both mandatory and voluntarily), causing me to be so tired I couldn’t recall driving home. On the nights where I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I would meet with another Trooper to catch a nap.  

One memory that I can laugh about today happened back in the mid-1980’s when I was a young Trooper. I fell asleep in the back of the courtroom after working several night shifts. I knew I was tired, but I had a subpoena, so I had to appear in court. I thought I was doing well until I awoke to the sound of the prosecutor calling my name for the third time. If that happened today, I would have a viral social media video or image to include with this blog! I remember thinking to myself, “One day, if I have a chance to make a difference, I’m going to do something about fatigue in law enforcement”.

Pro Tip

InTime uses a data-driven approach to address officer fatigue. With InTime Wellness, management can track employee hours easily, improve scheduling, and keep their department compliant with all union rules, while distributing overtime and work assignments fairly and equitably. InTime Wellness also provides law enforcement with access to tools and resources designed and approved by your apartment, to help keep your department running it best. 

What if we tracked “close calls”?

Although police fatigue isn’t causing commercial airline crashes, derailed trains, sunk oil tankers, or nuclear meltdowns, some police officers are falling asleep in cars while driving, making poor decisions, missing key evidence, mistreating citizens, or engaging in misconduct.

Not all fatigued police officers suffer these severe consequences; however, many have reported numerous close calls or a sharp decline in productivity. Most police agencies track crime trends, arrests and other statistical data that includes automobile crashes involving police officers or citizens’ complaints against officers. However, law enforcement agencies don’t track “close calls” or “near misses.” Just imagine how an honest conversation between a subordinate and a supervisor might unfold:

“Hey Sarge, boy did I just screw up…I just did something incredibly stupid or dangerous. But don’t worry! Nothing bad happened, I just thought you ought to know.”

I am not suggesting that we start tracking “near misses”, but we should encourage dialogue that allows law enforcement leaders and officers to better understand the impact of police fatigue. If we can reduce the number of times employees are working while fatigued with suppressed cognitive skills, we will reduce the number of close calls or near misses. By reducing close calls or near misses we can effectively reduce misfortunes.

What are some of the effects of fatigue in the workplace?

Fatigue in the workplace has been a contributing factor to some of the world’s worst disasters. Some of these catastrophes include the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Exxon Valdez and the Staten Island Ferry. At Chernobyl, overnight workers made a critical error and accidentally shut off cooling systems resulting in a devastating explosion. The Exxon Valdez supertanker struck a reef spilling over 20 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The investigation revealed that the first mate had been on duty for 30 hours and the third mate had only slept six hours in the previous 48 hours. 

Staten Island Ferry

In New York, a Staten Island Ferry crashed into the dock at full speed after the assistant captain fell asleep, killing 11 passengers and injuring over 70. There have been many more accidents in high risk professions, including police officers falling asleep while driving, resulting in deaths and injuries.

Tragically, we continue to lose officers in single-car crashes where investigations fail to fully explain why the officer ran off the road. If your immediate thought was “they fell asleep”, you are probably right. If that’s the case, why is there no investigation into how long they had been working? A friend once told me, “We don’t investigate heroes.” That statement reflects a sad reality. We should investigate these fatalities if for nothing more than trying to prevent it from happening again.

Why should you be concerned about the effects of fatigue in law enforcement?

Fatigued police officers are more likely to experience diminished performance and increased incidents of injuries, and use of physical force to effect arrests or citizens’ complaints. Not only does fatigue impair performance, but it also impacts productivity, mood, and judgment, all of which can negatively impact the community. When fatigued police officers’ judgment is diminished, they may fail to recognize danger.

When I talk to law enforcement leaders about police fatigue, normally the first thing that comes to mind is an officer falling asleep while driving. Do you know what is second?

Having a picture of one of their officers sleeping in their patrol car going viral on the internet. 

Not only is it embarrassing to the officer and the department, but the officer safety issues are also huge.  However, what rarely comes up is the impact fatigue is having on their officers’ judgment, decision-making, alertness, mood, productivity, and health. In actuality, this third area should be first on everyone’s mind.

Physiological effects of fatigue on police officers

The physiological effects of fatigue have been associated with obesity, cancer, diabetes, mental disorder, sleep disorders, depression, and cardiovascular disease. Are we not seeing cops afflicted with these diseases while on the job, or shortly after they retire? It’s a known fact that the average lifespan of a retired police officer is not very long. Recent research has reported that the average police officer only lives six years beyond retirement.

Addressing the culture problem of fatigue in law enforcement

Since we know fatigue in law enforcement isn’t a new phenomenon, why haven’t law enforcement leaders addressed the issue?

I’ll tell you why: fatigue is deeply embedded in law enforcement’s culture. We accept, tolerate, and encourage it! We’ve surrendered to the thought that being fatigued is normal and required for police work. We make excuses, “Oh, he has to work overtime to pay bills…Or she is in school, etc.”

We normalize fatigue in law enforcement very early in the recruiting and training process. We tell applicants they must work long hours or work all night, and then go to court during the day.  Even though police work often involves long hours overnight, law enforcement agencies do little to mitigate the problem. During the early stages of training, we create artificial stress through sleep deprivation to “weed out” those who don’t have the drive to do our job. We then expect these tired cadets or recruits to retain the material presented in the classroom.

Police officer training at a shooting ground

We encourage police fatigue by offering unlimited overtime, secondary employment, or moonlighting with little to no management controls. Some police departments’ pension calculations include overtime, encouraging officers in their last years to rack up the hours to enhance their pension benefit.

Here is the reality: the older we get, the harder it is to handle the long hours, shift work, and sleep deprivation. Studies have shown the impact of fatigue can cause slower reaction times and other impaired cognitive functions. This is dangerous in law enforcement, as your partner or your backup may not notice a threat, be too slow to react, or overreact.

Taking responsibility and changing police fatigue protocols

There are many policies and practices designed to restrict voluntary overtime, yet many police departments require their officers to work extended hours, far exceeding what they will allow them to voluntarily work.

I was fortunate to be given a chance to make a difference in 2010 by the Colonel of the Delaware State Police. I researched, authored and guided the organization through implementing one of the nation’s first true fatigue management policies. What set our policy apart from others was that it didn’t just manage the hours worked, it also included mitigation protocols for when “We” (the police department) fatigued our cops. Mitigation is an essential piece of a true fatigue reduction plan. Resolving this conflict between mandatory and voluntary overtime was one of the keys to the success of the fatigue management policy at the Delaware State Police, which remains in effect today.

The need for fatigue management in law enforcement

As the demands for police services increase, so does the scrutiny by lawyers, judges, media, and the public. This ultimately heightens the need to understand the potential culpability of fatigued police officers. Special interest groups continue to analyze all aspects of law enforcement looking for malfeasance. It’s only a matter of time before lawyers, suing for misconduct, injuries, or deaths caused by police, start looking at how long the officer was working or how long they had been awake because of working long extended hours. 

This pursuit may not be limited to injuries or death; officers and agencies may be held accountable for poor decisions or violations of protected civil rights if it can be shown either party was aware, or should have been aware, of a highly fatigued employee. Not only does fatigue management make sense, it would also help reduce potential injuries and liabilities, as well as improve officer health.

Comparing sleep deprivation to alcohol impairment

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, sleep deprivation is comparable to being impaired by alcoholic beverages. The problem in this comparison, however, is that fatigue can’t be easily measured or predicted. Some researchers define fatigue by the results rather than the causes, which often stem from personal experiences of past and present circumstances. Fatigue’s impact is also hard to visualize. To illustrate, research experts use blood alcohol content (BAC) analogies to illustrate the effect of being fatigued.

Experts say impairment begins at 17 hours of continued wakefulness. Here are some comparatives:

  • 17-24 hours equated to the same level of performance as a person with a BAC% of 0.05;
  • 20-24 hours of wakefulness equated to a BAC% of 0.08;
  • 20-25 hours of wakefulness equated to a BAC% as high as 0.10.

Since nearly all police departments have policies addressing officers working while under the influence of alcohol, you should ask yourself the following question:

What amount of BAC or impairment is allowed by policy when working? 

If your answer is zero, then why do we allow and tolerate severely fatigued officers to work? 

Breath Alcohol Tester

If you Google “police fatigue”, you will find many recent and ongoing studies validating the effects of fatigue. For example:

  • Officers who are on night work earn lower scores on driving simulators
  • Shoot, don’t shoot scenarios accuracy drops for officers experiencing different levels of fatigue.

These studies are important as some cops need science to validate common sense or knowledge. We all have experienced sleep deprivation and know how it impacts us individually.  The problem is that fatigue, like alcohol, first impacts our ability to recognize we are experiencing some level of impairment or diminished skills. Normally it starts with denial such as “I’m fine” or “I haven’t had too much to drink” and escalates from there. Have you ever argued with a friend who is drunk trying to keep them from driving? Comparatively, try sending home a highly fatigued cop who is refusing to leave the scene. They too will argue and rationalize with you as to why they can’t leave or should stay to “see the case through.” As police leaders, you need to strike a balance between individual desires (or demands!) and what is best for the department and community.

Everyone knows about fatigue in law enforcement

If you are a chief or police leader, these tired cops work for you; if you don’t believe you have a problem, you may want to look closer. It is easy to find out who your tired cops are … Just ask them, they know. Not only do they know, but their sergeants know, their co-workers know and if they all know, guess who else can find out? Lawyers.

If you allow your cops to moonlight, work special/extra duty, mandate overtime, or work compressed shifts, you own the responsibility. You need to know when they are working, how long, and ensure they have ample time to rest to reduce fatigue. In today’s day and age, there are software solutions available to manage work hours guided by sound policy. While policy and software will help manage police fatigue, the only true way to make a difference is to shift the culture from acceptance and tolerance to understanding, management, and mitigation

Changing the culture surrounding police fatigue

When I introduced the Mitigating Fatigue Police Program, we had to overcome many hurdles:  staffing, resistance to change, budgetary and collective bargaining agreements. In the end, and nearly six years later, fatigue management has become business as usual. There is no way to measure the cost savings, lives spared, injuries prevented, or close calls avoided with a fatigue management policy. While you can’t put a dollar sign on what you prevented, there is tremendous value in doing the right thing

About the Author

John Campanella
John Campanella

SHRM-SCP and Retired Captain

John retired in September 2017 from the Delaware State Police after thirty-two years at the rank of Captain serving his last four years as the Director of Human Resources.  John has a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership, is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, and is a Senior Certified Human Resources Professional.  John is currently a risk management consultant, trainer, law enforcement subject matter expert, and a certified assessor for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). John has also served as a volunteer firefighter for the past 15 years.

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