CopShock: Second Edition
Surviving Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
by Allen R. Kates, MFAW, BCECR
Police Information
Psychological Support
There are many websites on the Internet that
offer copious amounts of information for police officers, from news stories and
forums to products and training and psychological and emotional support.
Included here are some of the more comprehensive sites, as well as more websites
for police dispatchers.
Badge of
Life—Psychological Survival for Police Officers
The police
volunteers at Badge of Life will help you with presentations and training
seminars in order to create a better quality of mental health for police
officers and to prevent suicide. Their board of directors consists of retired
and active cops, a psychiatrist, clinical social worker, a psychiatric nurse and
major consultants in the mental health field. The website also provides
information for grieving families.
Go to:
http://www.badgeoflife.com. Write:
Andy O’Hara, Exec-utive Director, Badge of Life, PO Box 2203, Citrus Heights, CA
95611. Phone: 916-212-3144.
CopNet
CopNet links many police sites around
the world into one large resource for police officers and anybody interested in
police work. It features material on everything from firearms, forensics and
psychology to books and equipment. In addition, CopNet features a nationally
syndicated radio show where police issues, crime prevention, community
relations, and interaction with citizens are discussed.
Go to: http://www.copnet.org.
CopSeek.com
CopSeek.com is an exhaustive
website. It is a law enforcement directory, a search engine for all things
police, and it offers news, entertainment, columns, grants and funding
information, a members network, discussion forums, a gift shop, products of all
sorts, a police job center, a directory of over 6,000 police websites, training
information, a section for police wives websites, and even the police joke of
the day.
Go to: www.copseek.com.
National Criminal Justice
Reference Service (NCJRS)
As well as pages and pages of
articles about corrections, crime prevention, law enforcement and crime victims,
the NCJRS offers links to many websites, statistics, and books. I acquired many
studies on the psychological effects of PTSD on law enforcement officers from
this service.
Go to: http://www.ncjrs.org/. Write: NCJRS,
P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000. Call toll-free: 800-851-3420. Phone:
301-519-5500.
National Law Enforcement
Officers Memorial Fund
The National Law Enforcement Officers
Memorial Fund has been mentioned elsewhere in the support sources, but it shows
how significant it is that it falls into several major categories.
Among other things, the NLEOMF collects the names and stories of all law enforcement officers who have been injured or killed in-the-line-of-duty, and during Police Week, the names of those recently deceased are read out, wreaths are placed in their honor, and the names are etched into the Memorial wall in Washington, DC. In addition, on its website and in its newsletter the NLEOMF tells the stories of those officers who gave their lives.
The NLEOMF is also a repository of facts, figures and information about law enforcement trends, issues, and procedures. Its chairman and CEO, Craig Floyd, is an expert in law enforcement. For more than three decades, he has written articles, hosted radio shows, and published books. He is often quoted in the media about issues in the news, and on what officers do, how they are trained, and how they think. His work has been credited with changing America’s attitude toward the law enforcement profession, saving police lives, and providing assistance to the survivors of officers killed in-the-line-of-duty.
Go to: http://www.nleomf.org.
Officer.com
This remarkable website attempts
to list every worldwide police source on the Internet. Providing a mountain of
material, it lists individual departments, officers’ personal pages, officers
killed on duty, and corrections information. It provides daily news stories
related to law enforcement, forums, events, career information, products,
articles on police life, leadership, operations and tactics, technology, and
much more.
Go to: http://www.officer.com. Write:
Officer.com, 11720 Beltsville Drive, Suite 300, Beltsville, MD
20705.
PoliceOne.com
This is one of the most
comprehensive law enforcement websites on the Internet. It contains reference
sections such as police news articles, products, community, career, training,
officer safety, grants, body armor, communications, corrections, firearms,
equipment, software, tactical, evidence collection, gangs, investigations, K9,
SWAT, terrorism, expert witness, police videos, chat, forums, job postings, and
more.
Through PoliceOne.com, you can access one of their divisions called Calibre Press, which offers many law enforcement books, training manuals, and videos.
The Calibre Press Street Survival Seminar is also listed with cities and dates when the seminar will be conducted. I have attended two of their seminars, and the instruction is topnotch, the videos exceptional, and you will leave the seminar a changed, safer, and better officer—the Street Survival Seminar is that powerful. Their tee-shirts say: “The Trained Survive,” and they mean it.
For PoliceOne.com go to: www.PoliceOne.com. Write: 200 Green Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111. Phone toll-free: 800-765-4231.
For Calibre Press or the Street Survival Seminar
go to: www.CalibrePress.com. Write: 7616
LBJ Freeway, Suite 405, Dallas, TX 75251. Phone toll free: 800-323-0037. Main:
214-545-3060.