The literature review shows that much previous research on police stress, most of it conducted by police organizations, failed to empirically examine common assumptions regarding police stress. Those that did discovered that much stress could be traced to bureaucratic issues, not the dangerousness of police work. Future research on police stress should focus not only on intergroup (police-nonpolice) relations but on intragroup (among police officers) issues that make officers more or less susceptible to the deleterious effects of stress. It is essential to consider the various sources of stress different individuals experience in their social-psychological system and their capacity to respond adaptively. The suggested models for the study of police stress are the proximity-control hypothesis and the stress-diasthesis model. The first is a guide for research concerned with person-situation interactions; it predicts that police officer stress is functionally related to the physical and psychological proximity to society necessitated by the occupational role and the degree to which this requires the social control of others. The second model makes no assumptions regarding differential occupational stress levels; it recognizes that stress originates from many sources. From a diathesis-stress perspective, future research would focus on physical and social/psychological variables affecting the ability to manage this stress.