Working in a violent environment: The accuracy of police officers' reports about shooting incidents

The occupational stress of chronic working conditions in police organizations has been examined in the past, but the effects of acute stressful events are much more difficult to study systematically. Experienced police officers' memories for elements of a simulated stressful crime scene involving an on-duty shooting incident were examined. Officers were exposed to one of three situations varying in stress. In a 3 x 2 factorial design, some officers reviewed their memories by answering questions immediately after the shooting, while others did not. Twelve weeks later, officers' long-term memories were better for all elements of the crime scene if they had rehearsed. Under some conditions, officers tended to remember the most important elements better (i.e. the number of armed people present) and the least important elements worse (i.e. irrelevant objects). In addition, their confidence in their memories had little or no relationship to their memories' accuracy and there was a threat focus in which objects physically closest to the points of threat were remembered better. There are strong implications for two elements of job performance: writing police reports and testifying in court.