fbpx
Sleep

Tag

Critical Incident Interviews: Is the 48-Hour Delay Still Good Advice?

Following a high-intensity event, should officers be allowed to recover before being interviewed? In 2014, Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, sat down with Force Science News1 to explain why he recommends a 48-hour minimum recovery period: “This is the general conclusion from some 20 years of scientific research on sleep...
Read More
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,...
Read More

New Study: Anti-Fatigue Training Yields Big Benefits For Officers

Can just four hours of instruction on sleep problems and improvement help tired cops face the job with significantly less fatigue? Results of a recently published pilot study with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police suggest that’s possible. In a first-of-its-kind test, researchers headed by Dr. Lois James of Washington State U. in Spokane have found...
Read More

New Study Links Fatigue, Police Racial Bias

Police officers show significantly greater evidence of unconscious racial bias when they’re fatigued, according to a newly reported study by a researcher at Washington State U. in Spokane. “When officers received less sleep preceding each test session, they were significantly more likely to associate Black Americans with weapons compared with when they had received more...
Read More

Nevada Department Blesses Napping On Duty With Special Program

Napping while on the clock has long been a taboo in policing, fraught with fears of embarrassing photos of officers dozing in squad cars going viral and angry citizens denouncing “lazy cops” for shirking their tax-paid duties. But now under the name “Restorative Rest,” a department in Nevada has officially endorsed the practice with what...
Read More

New Study: Sleep Loss Impairs Critical Police-Type Decision-Making

In “fast-paced situations with uncertain outcomes and imperfect information,” good decision-making is “significantly hampered” by sleep deprivation, according to a new study by researchers from Washington State University and the University of Melbourne, Australia. Police officers, soldiers, disaster management personnel, and other emergency responders whose lives–and the lives of others–may depend on their ability to...
Read More

Force Science Institute Details Reasons For Delaying Interviews With OIS Survivors

As you know, the Force Science Institute in its Certification Course (visit www.forcescience.org for more details) and in public statements advocates that officers who have been involved in shootings or other high-intensity events should be allowed a recovery period of at least 48 hours before being interviewed in depth about the incident by IA or...
Read More

Snooze You Lose? Nope, Just The Opposite Where Memory’s Concerned

More evidence that sleep improves memory has been logged into research archives. As part of highly technical research designed to map the connection between various parts of the human brain and memory, British scientists have confirmed findings by other researchers that sleep has a positive effect on retention and recall. An investigative team led by...
Read More

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...
Read More

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...
Read More
1 2