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Shift Work

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Lack of Sleep - Police

New Study: Officer Fatigue Raises Likelihood of Citizen Complaints

Fatigue and sleepiness on the job significantly raise the odds of officers drawing citizen complaints during their shift, according to a newly published study by a team of sleep specialists. Their first-of-its-kind analysis finds that public complaints are roughly seven times more likely to occur on shifts with a traditionally high probability of officer tiredness—primarily,...
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Feeling Tired Isn’t The Only Bad Result Of Too Few Zzzzzzzzs

Negative evidence about sleep deprivation continues to pile up. Consider these new research findings: University of Iowa researchers report that if you’re averaging less than six hours sleep a night, you’re more susceptible to chronic fatigue and high-risk health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Studying 85 male officers from three police agencies in...
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New Study Confirms Health & Safety Dangers Of LEO’s Poor Sleep

Union reps, trainers, and human behavior experts who have been campaigning to get police fatigue recognized and addressed as a critical professional and public safety problem have been given an armory of ammunition for their battle by a comprehensive and complex new study of cops and sleeping disorders. A team of 13 sleep specialists, headed...
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Anti-Fatigue Measures Could Cut Cop Deaths 15%

A leading sleep researcher argues that officer deaths from vehicle accidents and violent attacks could be cut by at least 15%—“a pretty darned conservative estimate”—if the problem of police fatigue was seriously addressed. As it is, he claims, a toxic mix of poor personal habits and arbitrary agency policies is creating a “large pool of...
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Midnight Shift And Health Risks: New Study Tells Sobering Truths

Officers who predominately work midnights are at greater risk of developing severe health problems than civilians and other cops, especially if they average more than about 90 minutes of overtime per week and have trouble sleeping. This is established in a new study by an 8-member team of health experts, headed by Dr. John Violanti,...
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One Agency’s Innovation for Easing Shift Fatigue

We’ve reported previously on the dangers of fatigue in policing, but we haven’t described a creative countermeasure, typified by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office in Redwood City, CA. To help deputies who would otherwise face exhausting commutes after long shifts, the SO has established 2 free “crash pads” where personnel can get adequate sleep...
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Police and Sleep Problems: Are You a 40%er?

In law enforcement, you strive to be a 5%er, a symbol of excellence and commitment. But you may also be a 40%er. And that ain’t so good. After surveying 5,296 LEOs in North America, a Harvard Medical School group reports that nearly 40% (38.8%) of active-duty officers are suffering from sleep abnormalities. These include apnea,...
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Another Alarm Sounds About Tired Cops

The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin has added its voice to the growing concern about police fatigue, with an article in its August issue characterizing the problem as “an accident waiting to happen.” Among other things, the author, Spcl. Agt. Dennis Lindsey, a senior instructor at the DEA Academy and an international fellow at the Australian...
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Snooze You Lose? Actually, The Opposite May Be True

Does your agency encourage you to nap on duty? Probably not. But your department might get better performance and you might be safer if regulated snoozing was permitted, according to well-known trainer and consultant Tom Aveni, head of the Police Policy Studies Council and a Technical Advisory Board member of the Force Science Research Center...
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