• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Subscribe
American Police Beat

American Police Beat Magazine

Law Enforcement Publication

  • Home
  • Leadership
    • Are performance evaluations worth the effort?
      Leaders — the good, the bad and the horrible
      How not to fail as an outside chief
      Setting ethical expectations early in an officer’s career
      Go that extra mile with a smile
  • Topics
    • Leadership
      • Are performance evaluations worth the effort?
        Leaders — the good, the bad and the horrible
        How not to fail as an outside chief
        Setting ethical expectations early in an officer’s career
        Go that extra mile with a smile
    • Editor’s Picks
      • Off duty, but never off guard
        The tyranny of memories
        Meeting training needs on a limited budget
        Empowering through experience
        Getting ahead of the story
    • On the Job
      • Police chief: Officers likely prevented further violence in Minnesota...
        Policing and fatherhood
        2025 Top Cops
        What’s with all the gear?
        Reckless elegance
    • Labor
      • Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
        Small Texas town left without a police force after firing its last...
        Port Authority Police Department welcomes 71 new officers
        The P.D. that wouldn’t go away
        Critical incidents and waiting woosah
    • Tech
      • How local police departments can combat cybercrime
        Your website is your front desk
        Telegram investigations
        Florida sheriff’s office deploys cutting-edge forensic tool to...
        A new chapter for Utah law enforcement
    • Training
      • Blind spots
        LPVOs are the next evolution of the patrol rifle
        Training vs. practice: Improve or maintain?
        Off duty, but never off guard
        Meeting training needs on a limited budget
    • Policy
      • Cartel intelligence operations streamline cross-border drug smuggling
        Michigan Supreme Court: Marijuana odor alone no longer justifies...
        Milwaukee P.D. and schools clash over SROs
        Seattle Police Department launches new plan to curb violent crime
        Buffer-zone law blocked in Louisiana
    • Health/Wellness
      • “Hold my beer”
        When empathy backfires
        Navigating retirement
        Keeping work at work and home at home
        Avoiding the road to burnout
    • Community
      • Police warn of growing “jugging” crime trend as attacks spread...
        Code enforcement officers: The community’s frontline property...
        San Diego Honors Fallen Officer Austin Machitar with Park Renaming
        Battle of the Badges baseball game to support injured Missouri officer
        Temple University Police celebrate 7-year-old’s support with...
    • Offbeat
      • Not eggzactly a perfect heist
        Pizza … with a side of alligator?
        Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
        Only in California?
        Durango, Colorado, police hop into action after unusual 9-1-1 call
    • We Remember
      • National Police Week 2025
        Honoring Fallen Heroes
        What’s with the white chairs?
        The pain and sorrow of loss
        A cop and his car
    • HOT Mail
      • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • On the Job
    • Police chief: Officers likely prevented further violence in Minnesota...
      Policing and fatherhood
      2025 Top Cops
      What’s with all the gear?
      Reckless elegance
  • Labor
    • Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
      Small Texas town left without a police force after firing its last...
      Port Authority Police Department welcomes 71 new officers
      The P.D. that wouldn’t go away
      Critical incidents and waiting woosah
  • Tech
    • How local police departments can combat cybercrime
      Your website is your front desk
      Telegram investigations
      Florida sheriff’s office deploys cutting-edge forensic tool to...
      A new chapter for Utah law enforcement
  • Training
    • Blind spots
      LPVOs are the next evolution of the patrol rifle
      Training vs. practice: Improve or maintain?
      Off duty, but never off guard
      Meeting training needs on a limited budget
  • Policy
    • Cartel intelligence operations streamline cross-border drug smuggling
      Michigan Supreme Court: Marijuana odor alone no longer justifies...
      Milwaukee P.D. and schools clash over SROs
      Seattle Police Department launches new plan to curb violent crime
      Buffer-zone law blocked in Louisiana
  • Health/Wellness
    • “Hold my beer”
      When empathy backfires
      Navigating retirement
      Keeping work at work and home at home
      Avoiding the road to burnout
  • Community
    • Police warn of growing “jugging” crime trend as attacks spread...
      Code enforcement officers: The community’s frontline property...
      San Diego Honors Fallen Officer Austin Machitar with Park Renaming
      Battle of the Badges baseball game to support injured Missouri officer
      Temple University Police celebrate 7-year-old’s support with...
  • Offbeat
    • Not eggzactly a perfect heist
      Pizza … with a side of alligator?
      Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
      Only in California?
      Durango, Colorado, police hop into action after unusual 9-1-1 call
  • We Remember
    • National Police Week 2025
      Honoring Fallen Heroes
      What’s with the white chairs?
      The pain and sorrow of loss
      A cop and his car
  • HOT Mail
    • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
Search

Health/Wellness

Preventing compassion fatigue in policing

Dan Willis Published June 25, 2023 @ 3:00 pm PDT

iStock.com/ RyanJLane

Compassion is the DNA of professional police service dedicated to alleviating suffering, serving the needs of others and the community, solving problems, protecting life and creating positive change in people’s lives. Compassion fuels our highest motives in being as helpful and useful as possible in doing the most good.

However, without consistent effort, compassion fatigue can cripple an officer’s abilities to provide the most effective professional services and can often leave the officer calloused, disillusioned, ineffective and uncaring.

The importance of compassion in policing

As a peace officer, if you are not driven by your heart to make a positive difference with every call and to do as much good as you can for those in need, for your colleagues, your agency and your community in compassionate
and meaningful ways — then the job can eat you alive.

Compassionate service in being as useful and helpful as possible is one of the most powerful wellness strategies that serves to strengthen resilience while keeping officers motivated, professional and inspired to do their best in the service of others.

Compassion in professional policing is essential because it enables and empowers the good that can be done in any given situation. It enables officers to make the most of the daily opportunities to positively affect people’s lives.

Compassion is the recognition of someone’s suffering or of any need, then being driven by one’s heart to make a meaningful difference. It is an officer’s capacity to care, to do good and to be helpful. It is what enables officers to be the good amid all the bad.

The everyday work traumas of the police profession can suffocate an officer’s heart, leaving them cold and detached, unable to experience the fullness of life. Putting their heart into their service in meaningful ways helps to prevent this all-too-common tragic outcome of policing.

What is compassion fatigue?

Compassion fatigue is when an officer becomes indifferent or uncaring and stops wanting to make a difference. This is mainly the result of two things: First, not being steadfast in their own daily self-care and resilience practices; and second, when they do something hoping for a specific desired outcome but then get discouraged when that outcome doesn’t materialize.

Compassion fatigue can lead to a lack of purpose in policing. It can cause significant psychological and emotional distress that makes professional policing all the more challenging and potentially harmful to the well-being of the officer.

There are several warning signs of being affected by compassion fatigue: inability to care, feeling burned out, lack of desire to want to help, feelings of being numb to life, becoming increasingly self-centered and cynical, becoming more negative, being disinterested in others, a growing sense of hopelessness and indifference.

Compassion fatigue can lead to increased stress and tension, decreased resiliency, fatigue and sleep disturbances, loss of interest in the job and becoming increasingly irritable, angry and withdrawn.

Avoiding compassion fatigue

Becoming more self-aware is the first step to counter compassion fatigue. Ask yourself and those closest to you if you have been exhibiting any of the above warning signs. If so, then become more purposed in trying to be more helpful and useful in meaningful ways to others, to your agency and colleagues, and to your community.

Often remind yourself that compassion in your service is what gives meaning, purpose and fulfillment to your work. If you catch yourself not caring or wanting to make a positive effort, ask yourself, “Why?” If the answer is you just don’t care or that it’s not worth your time and effort, or that it won’t do any good — then think back to why you wanted to be an officer in the first place. Try to affirm the ideals that motivated you initially to want to be willing to sacrifice a part of yourself for the good of the country, community and those who need you.

I can attest from my 30 years in law enforcement, and from all the officers I’ve known, the most peaceful and contented officers who loved their job all throughout their careers were the ones who found meaningful ways to serve with compassion in doing as much good as they could.

Regarding the first cause of compassion fatigue in being steadfast with self-care, commit to the daily practice of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness strategies. (See “Effective strategies to strengthen resiliency” by the author at apbweb.com/2021/12/resiliency.)

Regarding the second cause of compassion fatigue due to discouragement in the lack of positive outcomes, always strive to focus on trying to do good and make a meaningful difference, not on a specific outcome desired. It is the effort in the present moment that is helpful to the officer, not the outcome. If there happens to be a positive outcome, that’s just an extra bonus. In the midst of a call for service, ask yourself, “What good can I do here?” Then do what you can without any expectation of an outcome.

Many times, officers tend to hope for specific positive outcomes as a result of their actions, and when those don’t result, it’s natural to feel disheartened, disappointed and frustrated. Eventually, when this happens often enough, they can lose their desire to make an effort, believing no good will come of it and that it’s a waste of their time.

Always believe in your potential to do good while realizing you cannot control outcomes. We do good things with the hope these actions will have a lasting, positive influence. The reality is that they may or may not. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter. The greatest value, in the present moment, is intending to be helpful with purposed compassion. That effort will always result in strengthening your resilience, your job satisfaction and your fulfillment.

Good intentions and effort always support and improve wellness. They help keep one’s heart from suffocating and enable the heart to work for your greater good.

Conclusion

Throughout your service, strive to remember the power of compassion to not only do good, but to keep you resilient, well and at peace. May you experience all the peace, joy and fulfillment that a professional life of compassionate service has to offer. 

Dan Willis

Dan Willis

Captain Dan Willis (ret.) served for 30 years with the La Mesa Police Department in California and now travels the country as an international instructor on trauma recovery, resilience and wellness. He is the author of the emotional survival and wellness guidebook Bulletproof Spirit: The First Responders Essential Resource for Protecting and Healing Mind and Heart, which is required reading at the FBI National Academy. For more information, visit FirstResponderWellness.com.

View articles by Dan Willis

As seen in the June 2023 issue of American Police Beat magazine.
Don’t miss out on another issue today! Click below:

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

Categories: Health/Wellness

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

  • “Hold my beer”
  • NLEOMF’s 2025 Mid-Year Law Enforcement Fatalities Report reveals law enforcement deaths have decreased by more than 50% over last year
  • Are performance evaluations worth the effort?
  • Blind spots
  • Police warn of growing “jugging” crime trend as attacks spread across nation
  • Code enforcement officers: The community’s frontline property regulators
  • When empathy backfires
  • 2025 Mid-Year Law Enforcement Officers Fatality Report
  • National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Announces May 2025 Officer of the Month
  • Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police recruits in effort to boost hiring

Footer

Our Mission
To serve as a trusted voice of the nation’s law enforcement community, providing informative, entertaining and inspiring content on interesting and engaging topics affecting peace officers today.

Contact us: info@apbweb.com | (800) 234-0056.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Categories

  • Editor’s Picks
  • On the Job
  • Labor
  • Tech
  • Training
  • Policy
  • Health/Wellness
  • Community
  • Offbeat
  • We Remember
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Events

Editor’s Picks

Off duty, but never off guard

Off duty, but never off guard

May 05, 2025

The tyranny of memories

The tyranny of memories

May 04, 2025

Meeting training needs on a limited budget

Meeting training needs on a limited budget

May 02, 2025

Empowering through experience

Empowering through experience

April 18, 2025

Policies | Consent Preferences | Copyright © 2025 APB Media, LLC | Website design, development and maintenance by 911MEDIA

Open

Subscribe

Close

Receive the latest news and updates from American Police Beat directly to your inbox!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.