Through extensive field observation and structured interviews with NYPD officers, Henry reveals patterns of psychological transformation and social consequences of police encounters with death.

With a foreword by Robert Jay Lifton and a chapter devoted to the local police response to the World Trade Center attacks, Death Work will be of interest to psychologists and criminal justice experts, as well as police officers eager to gain insight into their unique relationship to death.

Foreword
Introduction: The Death and Policing Nexus
1. Death Work: The General Context
2. Police Survivors of Death Encounters: Theoretical Perspective and Strategy of Inquiry
3. "Becoming a Cop": Basic Social and Psychological Processes
4. The Rookie's Experience: Introduction to Death
5. Patrol Sergeants: Routinization of the Death Encounter
6. Crime Scene Detectives: "Technicizing" the Death Encounter
7. Homicide Detectives: Emotional Reactions to Violent Death
8. Police Survivors: Genuine Threats to the Sense of Immortality
9. Reflections and Observations
Epilogue: September 11, 2001