Will I Stay or Will I Go? Exploring Job Demand Stress, Organizational Justice, and Psychological Health in Decisions to Leave the Police Agency or Profession

The paper draws on data (N = 3,625) collected from a national survey of United States police personnel. The study investigates how perceptions of trauma, organizational, and operational stress (i.e. job demand stress), organizational justice (i.e. a job resource), and reported levels of burnout and psychological distress compare across three groups. The groups included: those who intend to remain in policing (n = 1,607), those considering leaving their police agency to work in another agency (n = 616), and those considering leaving the police profession (n = 1,402). While all the factors studied were found to be important in understanding retention, the groups differed significantly in their reported levels of job demand stress, organizational justice, and psychological health, depending on whether officers intended to stay, leave their agency, or leave the profession entirely. To improve officer retention, strategies that specifically target the reduction and mitigation of organizational and operational job demand stress, increase organizational justice within agencies, and reduce burnout and psychological distress are needed. This research provides important insights for police chiefs who are seeking solutions to the increasing number of officers who leave one agency to join another. The study also addresses a much broader and more pervasive issue, how to stem the tide of officers who are exiting the police profession. Police retention will reach crisis point when there are simply too few officers to staff police agencies.