| Law Enforcement Officers (LEO) assigned to investigations involving crimes against children are constantly subjected to the viewing of disturbing sexually graphic images of children in print or electronic media. For a law enforcement organization to conduct a psychological / personality screening to identify qualified candidates for this specialty assignment is unusual. It is more typical that investigators are assigned to this position without any screening or have any monitoring of their well being while assigned to this specialized work.;Perez, Jones, Englert, Sachau's (2010) study demonstrated that personnel who investigate Internet child pornography cases show a substantial decrease in psychological well-being. Greater exposure to disturbing media was related to higher levels of secondary traumatic stress disorder (STSD) and cynicism (Perez, Jones, Englert, & Daniel, 2010).;This research examined the psychological impact on LEOs who were exposed to these graphic images while conducting these types of investigations. A comparative study was conducted between 54 crimes against children investigators (CACI) and 43 patrol officers (PO). The Kruskal-Wallis statistical analysis for non-parametric data was conducted which identified that CACIs reported the events at work negatively affected them more than the POs, x2(1,N-95)=4.983,p=.026. The study did not find any significant difference in how CACIs and POs coped with stress. |
