911 operators' role often undervalued, researchers find
Researchers of a new study looking at public safety communications personnel recommend categorizing 911 operators and call takers as first responders. iStock photo
When a person needs emergency services, the first person they speak with is rarely a firefighter, police officer or paramedic. It’s a 911 operator or call taker, broadly called public safety communications personnel.
It’s a tough job. Call centers are noisy, and in many localities, the calls just keep coming and coming. The person on the other end of the line may be reporting an injury accident, phoning in a disturbance on their street or detailing a physical or emotional trauma they’re experiencing. The call taker must make quick decisions to deploy the necessary services, all while remaining calm as the caller describes what may be one of the worst days of their life.
Public safety communications personnel and their role in the criminal legal system are the subject of a new study led by Joseph A. Schafer, professor in Arizona State University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice; Beth Huebner, director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Watts Endowed Professor of Public Safety; and Lee Slocum, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri, St. Louis.
The study aims to evaluate how these employees make classifications in an often hectic environment with limited information, as well as better understand 911 operators’ feelings of preparedness, training needs and trauma exposure. The research was funded by the MacArthur Foundation's Safety and Justice Challenge.
Researchers found that call takers must balance professional discretion and protocols, and those protocols are shaped by the structure and complexity of jurisdictions and the technologies used to process calls. Their role is made more difficult by challenges such as trauma exposure, demanding schedules and understaffing.
Despite those challenges, patrol officers interviewed as part of the study noted that the information provided by 911 operators and call takers critically shapes their decisions and behaviors when arriving on scene.
“Public safety communications personnel work in a fast-paced environment with limited, incomplete, inaccurate and shifting information, and they very quickly have to make interpretive and classification judgments,” Schafer said. “We were curious: Do they feel prepared? Do they feel like they have the necessary training and tools?”
Changes to policies and practices, as well as enhanced training, can improve community safety and add value to the public safety communications personnel profession, researchers found.
Based on the study’s findings, the researchers recommended categorizing 911 operators and call takers as first responders, developing mutual learning experiences between communications personnel and patrol officers, and increasing call takers' access to training, professional development and mental health services.
Huebner, one of the study’s principal investigators, said of all of the recommendations, recognizing public safety communications personnel as first responders was the most critical. These jobs require strong communication and negotiation skills, but the employees who fill them are considered clerical workers with entry-level wages, and they are not given the same training or mental health services as police, fire and emergency medical workers, she said.
“It's really important to broaden our understanding of first responders and their exposure to trauma because call takers are hurting. Oftentimes they have to talk people down during a difficult time or offer them care,” Huebner said. “This needs to be seen as more of a career so that people can stay in those jobs, receive training for professional growth and receive holistic support so that they aren't harmed by this work.”
She highlighted Arizona’s 2023 legislation that extends the Traumatic Event Counseling Program to public safety communications personnel as a policy moving in the right direction.
In exploring the role of 911 operators and call takers, the team used three complementary research methods to better triangulate how these employees make decisions and where system improvements might enhance their work. The project included analyzing computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, data, conducting systematic social observation, and interviewing call takers, managers and patrol officers in three localities: East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana; St. Louis County, Missouri; and Charleston County, South Carolina. The study took nearly two years to complete.
Systematic social observation involved listening in on nearly 850 calls in real time. Schafer said the observations provided more “nuance” than just reviewing CAD data, allowing researchers to hear the tone of the operator as well as the actual requests of the public.
“Listening to calls demonstrated, in a more tangible way, the complexity of the work and gave us a much deeper understanding of the nuance, uncertainty and ambiguity that public safety communications personnel have to operate under,” Schafer said. “It also showed us that there are a lot of opportunities to better assess the decisions that these employees make and to develop better protocols and evidence-based training to help them go from good to great in their work.”
Shifts in recognizing the training needs and trauma exposure of public safety communications personnel are happening, and more can be done for career development, added Schafer. For him, doing the research reinforced the concern that public safety communications personnel are frequently overlooked within the justice system, by the public and by researchers.
“The research community hasn't comprehensively explored how these employees go about their business,” Schafer said.
The report’s final recommendation is to continue research into call takers’ discretion and its effect on patrol officers.
The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice is a part of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
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