The findings of a recent study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum revealed that 99.2 per cent of policemen or women worked more than forty hours per week regardless of their years of service, rank, type of duty performed or the area in which they worked. Thirty five and a half per cent worked between 54-66 hours per work, 25.5 per cent worked between 67-79 hours per week; and twenty-two per cent worked a staggering 80 hours or more per week.
Superintendent Ionie Ramsay, head of the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) cited an instance when a member of her staff suffered a heart attack after working for long hours.
excessive hours
"I have literally seen a policeman buckle at my feet because I called him from his house after he had gone home at 8:00, had him work in my office until midnight, two days later he had a heart attack," said Supt. Ramsay-Nelson who went on to add that excessive hours negatively affected families.
"The honest family-loving policeman will tell you that when you spend 12-14 hours at work, it is a half-dead man going home. What can he do besides eat and get fat around the waist?"
"I have wives calling me to ask if it is true that their husbands are really where they say that they are. I happen to have a heart, I happen to have a conscience and at the end of each day, I do not only have to account to my boss, I have to account to my God for what I do. I believe that it is pressuring me. It is my staff and I know what they have to undergo."
