Good and Bad Stress Final Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Good and Bad Stress Final - Research Paper Example Professions related to criminal justice are enlisted among the most stressful professions. This is partly because the nature of job exposes the ones involved to all kinds of social and psychological stressors. However, stress in the professions of criminal justice differs from the stress encountered by people in other professions in that the effects of stress don’t show up immediately. In a vast majority of cases, the stress is post-traumatic in type. The highest mean scores of the stressors are experienced by the officers who have been six and ten years of experience in the profession of criminal justice. (Violanti & Aron, 1995). This paper explores the good and bad stresses in the profession of criminal justice. Sleye (1975) has identified two kinds of stress; good stress and bad stress. Good stress is also known as eustress while another name for bad stress is distress. One of the most fundamental traits that makes the good stress experienced by officers in all professions of criminal justice in general and in police in particular different from the good stress experienced by other professionals is that in criminal justice area, it is as bad or even worse as compared to the bad stress. This is because of the fact that the people belonging to the professions of criminal justice are authorized and empowered to provide people with justice. With power comes responsibility. This is the reason why people get higher salaries and more benefits in the professions of criminal justice. However, the same benefits and luxuries associated with these professions sometimes cause huge burden upon one’s conscience if one is not satisfied with one’s performance. â€Å"High points in life can t urn into disasters. You feel guilty, you party, you spend, you gamble, you drink, you go into more debt, and these are the times when you start looking to fool around† (O’Connor, 2010). Bad stress in the criminal justice professions occurs because of several reasons which