Abstract

Many police organisations employ and rely on public servants to complete specialised tasks with their organisations. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) regularly hires public servants known as Detachment Services Assistants (DSAs) to take on various support roles. As part of DSAs’ many clerical and administrative responsibilities, these workers must often perform emotional labour across different job tasks, which in turn, can be a personal yet occupationally mandated source of stress and strain. In the current study, we draw from semi-structured interviews with DSAs (n = 54) to investigate the different situations in which DSAs undertake emotional labour, the various styles of emotional labour DSAs perform, and the negative toll emotional labour places on DSAs in their workplace. Our research aims to contribute to the broader emotional labour literature on policing and the niche police literature on public servants, a form of civilian staff, employed by the RCMP.

摘要

许多警察组织雇用并依靠公务员来完成其组织的专门任务。加拿大皇家骑警 (RCMP) 定期雇用被称为特遣队服务助理 (DSA) 的公务员来承担各种支持角色。作为 DSA 众多文书和行政职责的一部分，这些员工必须经常在不同的工作任务中进行情感劳动，这反过来又可能成为个人但职业规定的压力和紧张来源。在当前的研究中，我们借鉴了 DSA 的半结构化访谈（n = 54) 调查 DSA 进行情感劳动的不同情况、DSA 执行的不同类型的情感劳动，以及情感劳动对其工作场所的 DSA 造成的负面影响。我们的研究旨在为更广泛的关于警务的情感劳动文献以及关于公务员（皇家骑警雇用的一种文职人员）的小众警察文献做出贡献。