A research on working conditions of members of police department: The case of Eastern Marmara Region

The desire to live in safety is one of the most fundamental issues of the societies. A variety of security policies are being developed day by day in terms of macro and micro perspectives. Depending on the increasing crime rates, the diversification of crimes threatens the security of the society. The police undertaking significant duties concerning prevention of incidents in the field of crime and maintaining the security endeavour for long hours in harsh working conditions. The primary duty of the police is to ensure the security and peace of the society. However, the outstanding work of the police in heavy and challenging working conditions is ignored by the society and considered to be carried out as a professional requirement of being police. The police working at this busy pace cannot devote a lot of time to their daily lives, which as a result, leads up to poor performance, stress and similar drawbacks. In the cases when the balance between private and business life cannot be settled it causes various domestic conflicts and the individual to consider his own competencies as insufficient. Therefore, it is highly important to produce remedial solutions aiming for the harsh working conditions of the police working for long periods of time. Within this context, this study aims to examine the working conditions of police and reveal the troubles they have. Within the frame of this objective, by using ease and snowball sampling method; I reached the police officers working in the Eastern Marmara provinces (Sakarya, Yalova, Düzce, Bolu and Kocaeli), and I had semi-structure interview –a qualitative method- with them. The collected data has been evaluated with content analysis. Consequently, the study reveals that long working hours prevent police officers to participate in social life and cause them to feel exhausted. The feeling of inadequacy occurs because the police do not fulfil their responsibilities in private life. In addition, long working hours and additional tasks make their working conditions difficult. Their expectation about this issue is having right of longer leave.