Police1’s “What Cops Want in 2024” State of the Industry Survey asked officers for their thoughts about officer wellness, both mental and physical. The survey’s results showed that there are more similarities than differences in how officers feel about how they feel, and what they need to feel better. It turns out that rural officers are subject to the same stressors as officers in the cities. While the stressors may be on a smaller scale, so are the resources available to combat them.
Who responded to the survey?
Rural officers made up about 25% of all respondents, and were far more likely than suburban or urban officers to work for a sheriff’s office (41%). Another 29% work for municipal departments, about 20% work for state agencies — think highway patrol and game wardens — and the rest were from a smattering of federal and tribal agencies.
“Federal” and “rural” don’t seem like they go together, but parks and wildlife refuges are policed by federal officers; border patrol officers often work in remote places, and the FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs are responsible for support and major investigations on tribal lands. Rural is a place, not a size: while many of the officers reported working for a department with fewer than 50 officers, nearly a third worked for departments with between 100-499 officers.
Rural officers were a little more likely to have only a high school diploma than their city-dwelling peers, but about 64% have either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, and nearly 10% had a graduate degree.
What’s the same and what’s different for rural officers?
Rural, suburban or urban, officers gave the same top three answers to questions about why they chose to serve:
- Variety, they love doing something different each day
- To serve their communities, and
- To help people.
The landscape may vary, but the calling remains the same. They also uniformly loathed the same two things: presumption by the public that police are in the wrong and bad leadership.
One place where rural officers diverged? Satisfaction with pay and benefits. A full third of rural officers are unhappy with their compensation compared to their peers in more populous places. Only 23% of suburban officers and 20% of urban officers were similarly unhappy. That dissatisfaction echoed in answers to later questions, as income shortfalls impacted time off (extra jobs and overtime) and the ability to join a gym or buy healthy food.
Rural officers were also less likely to have access to resources like EAPs, chaplains, or counseling with therapists skilled in police stress than officers from cities — like, only 50% compared to 63% (suburban) and 65% (urban). Only 19% of rural officers reported access to family counseling. While rural officers were more likely to say their supervisors recognize their stressors, they were less likely to say their supervisors offer any behavioral health support services. They were also more likely to say their schedules disrupted their eating habits: rural officers were the most likely to skip meals and have irregular mealtimes.
One surprise was the answers to the question, “My partner’s nutrition and daily energy (or lack thereof) impacts my safety as a police officer.” The “Not applicable, I don’t have a partner” answers were nearly the same across the board, yet very few rural agencies run two-person cars. Some don’t even run two-person shifts. Since I know that’s rarer in cities, I wonder how respondents defined “partner,” and if that affects their answer.
Overall, I found this year’s survey results striking for the many similarities in answers from officers in all places. For question after question, there was little statistical difference among the respondents. Rural officers have a harder time accessing resources, but they don’t report feeling significantly worse for that, physically or mentally, than officers from other places do.
The four things rural officers want
Distilled from more than a hundred pages of survey questions, rural officers want consistency, communication, confidentiality and consideration.
1. Consistency
Rural officers want to be treated fairly by their supervisors as well as the public. They notice when favorites are granted time off or access to training while others are denied, and they resent it. Discipline doled out more or less harshly depending on the employee involved degrades morale. That happens in cities as well, of course, but it feels personal when there are tens of people involved, rather than thousands.
Being coerced to participate in improper practices can be hard to avoid in a department that’s so small FLSA doesn’t apply, especially in states without union protections. One officer simply stated, “(I want) to not be forced to run a shift short while lying about running a shift short.” Hypocrisy is the ultimate trust buster, and wears on mental health.
Schedules that change arbitrarily disrupt plans and sleep patterns, making it hard to rest, work out, or take a vacation. Rural officers understand short staffing and are willing to be flexible but healthy patterns require some ability to plan. They want what the department says and what it does to line up in a way that makes sense. As one respondent noted, “(I want to be able) to trust the employer has our best interest in mind. Currently (health-related) programs are being implemented but ONLY because of the insurance increase, payouts to PTSD claims.”
Officers reported feeling sabotaged in their own efforts to get healthy and strong by a constant current of junk food in the office and vending machines that sell only fatty, salty or sweet snacks while the official message is “take care of yourself.” Another officer wanted their department to “allow the use of the kitchen in the office. The stove, oven and fridge are disconnected because the department doesn’t like the cost of using them.” Rural places are notorious food deserts; why make it harder to store or reheat food?
2. Communication
Rural officers want their supervisors to hear them, and to talk with them. They have concerns and they have potential solutions, but no one is listening.
They want counseling with therapists who understand what police work does to their bodies and minds. They want peer support programs, and they want opportunities to talk out the aftermath of tough calls or complex operations with their coworkers as well as their bosses. They want chaplain programs, and they want their families included in counseling, too.
3. Confidentiality
Even the officers who reported adequate levels of available wellness programs were skeptical of using them. Some had witnessed negative consequences including discipline and termination, when other officers used (or even asked to use) EAPs or department-sanctioned counseling, and some had experienced it themselves. They do not trust the resources not to leak information back to their supervisors. Officers want to use the resources they do have without blowback from the department. It’s not a big ask.
4. Consideration
This is the big one because it covers a lot of ground. Rural officers want their needs, their limitations, their dignity — their humanity — to be accounted for when decisions are made. Many of the respondents reported being treated like machinery rather than people: a filler of shifts, a plugger of holes, someone (something?) who doesn’t pay bills, raise children, get tired, get hangry, lose patience, or have to pee.
Asked what could help with health goals, officers said things like:
- “Being paid for 40 hours a week and going home, not being forced to work 60 hours a week for no additional compensation.”
- “Being able to truly detach. Even when I am on vacation, I am often contacted to deal with various issues.”
- “Being able to turn off my phone.”
The particular challenges of rural settings were made plain by the officer who requested, “Tell the bad people not to call us out in the middle of the night, since…the jail is 100 miles away, one way.”
We know what rural officers want. How do we get there?
Most of the respondents were acutely aware that their health is ultimately their own responsibility. Nevertheless, there is a lot that leadership can do to help officers improve their health and therefore the entire department’s wellbeing. The keys are time, access and (as always) money.
Their officers need time, and law enforcement agencies can prioritize rest and consistency. Without adequate time off, both during the work week and for vacation, burnout is inevitable. Tired officers make poor decisions and have worse reflexes. They get sick. They break. They’re cranky, and that’s bad for community relations. Find a way to ensure that officers can sleep, eat regular meals more often than not, work out, and socialize, even if it means some things are left undone. Everything isn’t an emergency.
Officers need access to resources: exercise, food, medical care and counseling are just a few. All of these can be tricky in rural places, so get creative. Repurpose a storage room for a gym. Ask for donations of equipment. Work with insurance providers and HR to find medical and mental health practitioners willing to do telehealth; then do whatever it takes to make sure officers are not penalized for using them - even if that means a long hard look in your mirror, and shredding the last vestige of “We’ve always done it this way.”
Fill the vending machine with protein bars and other healthy snacks. Brainstorm ways to make it simpler to eat better. Have a raffle to fund a fridge and a microwave, and encourage officers to meal prep. If a weekly donut or pizza run is the standard, try something new: one survey respondent said, “Our agency (provides) weekly fresh fruit to deputies. We all love it and are more likely to choose the healthy alternative when it’s offered.”
Finally, officers need money. It’s not grubby to talk about it. Healthy food choices, gym memberships or exercise equipment — even just running shoes — all cost. Even with decent health coverage, co-pays and deductibles add up. Officers who have to choose between diapers and meal-prepping will just grab the donut on their way through dispatch. Either get them a raise if they need one, or find a way for the department to fund what they need. I know that’s easier said than done; that doesn’t make it less necessary.
Officers who are heard, who can access resources, and who can trust their supervisors can get healthy and stay that way. What they need is no secret: just listen to them.
