Officer Fatigue Officer fatigue can be a pretty serious problem for police departments. Excessive fatigue generally reduces alertness, decreases performance, and worsens mood. These symptoms can reduce officer performance and safety with potentially life-threatening effects. Patrol officers are expected to remain alert and capable of resolving complex, emotional and potentially dangerous situations. They are expected to be able to multitask and remain alert during periods of inactivity. These activities can be quite difficult for a fatigued officer to complete (Vila 1996). Community-oriented policing efforts can be seriously compromised by officer fatigue, whose excessive fatigue can damage police-community relations (Vila & Taiji 1999). In many cases, the result of officer fatigue has been fatal to both the officer and civilians involved in fatigue-related incidents (Vila & Kenney 2002). There is no standardized or regulated method of controlling the time officers spend working as there is for pilots. and truck drivers. As such, limited only to department policies, many officers will work enormous amounts of extra hours in overtime or moonlighting. Officials in both Florida and Massachusetts have been reported working up to 3,000 additional hours per year (Vila & Kenney 2002). In a study of the Jacksonville, Florida, police department, it was found that most officers moonlighted. Most of these officers moonlighted ten hours or less per week. Some, however, worked more than sixty additional hours per week, leading to an average work week exceeding 100 hours. At the time, the department had no policy limiting moonlighting hours. The then recently elected sheriff, reported that he intended to change this policy... middle of paper... act of interest. While this is less likely to happen, a police officer moonlighting in certain medical fields or in certain religious roles could conceivably create similar conflicts. Moonlighting officers generally only respond to tasks on their employer's property. Many police say they would intervene in some crimes such as robberies even if they occurred outside their work area, but they said they would leave most crimes to the officers on duty (Stewart 1985). This creates a theoretically problematic and potentially damaging situation for the agency's image. To the public, there is no reason why a seemingly functional uniformed officer should not respond to ongoing criminal activity. The public only sees an officer not responding to a crime, the fact that he is actually moonlighting at the time and off duty is lost on most people..