Police Suicides : The Risks Of Suicide And The Police Officer

Have you ever wondered what’s it 's like to be a cop? Or what cop’s families go through on a day to day basis? This book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement written by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D. gives us an outline on the difficulty and stress that law enforcement officer and their families face on daily basis. Dr. Gilmartin discusses the stages of hypervigilance. And the long-term effects of hypervigilance and the toll it takes on the officer and his or her family.

Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D. is a book that seeks to inform and instruct those seeking to be in law enforcement, law enforcement professionals and their families of the realities of a career in law enforcement- professionally and personally. And how to best prepare for emotional survival of “on-duty and off-duty” life. It also compares and contrasts what happens to officers at the beginning of this journey and what typical happens to officers overtime; focusing mainly on what happens to officers that don’t know the techniques of emotional survival. Though it

The Center for Disease Control maintains a national database of occupation related mortality. Known as the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance (NOMS), this database maintains the death certificate data from 28 states, greatly limiting the overall picture of the United States as a whole. The current Occupational Health and Safety and NOMS databases do not specifically segregate first responder job classes, yet lumps them into occupational codes that encompass occupations that are not relevant to first responders. Statistical data from NOMS (1994-1998) showed that police suicides were four times greater than firefighters and police suicides dwarfed homicides 2.36 times (Violanti, 2010). There are significant limitations in research related to first responder suicide rates as the

Law enforcement suicide is a problem that affects law enforcement agencies across the United States. No agencies, large or small, are immune to the possibility of an officer taking their own life. These deaths should be almost non-existent since they involve a community of people who have been found to be mentally healthy. By working to educate and support law enforcement, both through the department and by working with other organizations, agencies can greatly reduce the number of law enforcement suicides. The Grand Junction Police Department, while making strides in some areas, still has much work to do to implement an effective suicide prevention program.

The list includes but is not limited to depression, social isolation, and chronic anger (Gilmartin, 2002). We as officers and egos often deny this and try to rationalize our behavior all the while this career is taking a toll on us. This toll takes the form of physical health issues, to our personal relationships with our spouses, significant others, and most importantly our children. The good news is that “Many police officers, in fact survive emotionally and remain functional, healthy individuals” (Gilmartin, 2002).

Every day the criminal justice system’s officers and employees sacrifice and risk a lot just to try and protect the world. Times in U.S. have changed a whole lot than back then, and now where to the point where police officers don’t make no one feel safe. “It is undeniable that police in the US often contend with much more violent situations and more heavily armed individuals than police in other developed democratic societies” (Lartey). Police shootings of citizens is a social problem that needs to be addressed. Police officers are aware of the mass shootings in the world today from school shootings to airport shootings. These mass shootings have damaged millions especially police officers and their training. Police officers are scared to

To begin with, police suicide is on the rise. According to The Mystery Within: Understanding Police Suicide, “in the years 1950 to 1979, a sample of 2,662 officers averaged one suicide every 2.5 years.” Subsequently, “from 1980 to 1990, the rate increased to one suicide every 1.25 years (Violanti para 1). This indicates that the suicide

Police work is dangerous. Any time during an officer’s career he or she may be put into a situation in which excessive or even deadly force is deemed necessary for not only

Ever since the mid to late twentieth century, there have been contributing factors, symptoms, prevention and treatment programs for law enforcement officials. During those years, police departments did find a way to get employee support programs, and create prevention programs for many officers and their loved ones. Police officers have increased rates of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disorders, divorce rates twice the national average, and suicide rates two to six

There is nothing more honorable than an individual choosing to serve his community and his country as a law enforcement officer. With some margin of error they are a very respectable and hardworking people, but in their line of work there are challenges that most people will never have to face. The most obvious being the heightened amount of responsibility and the burden of maintaining a good public image along with the inherent dangers of working in the profession. The stress placed on these men and women builds up and in many of them they begin to develop problems at home and problems with themselves. Some are as innocent as high blood pressure while others can be as serious as insomnia, increase in suicidal thoughts or actions, post-traumatic stress disorder, and heart diseases to name a few. Not only are officers lives threatened while on duty, negative mental and physical strain can develop into serious problems for the officers that affects them wherever they are in their day to day life. A study done shows that 72% of female officers and 43% of male officers had health problems related to the stressful work environment that police officers are subject to. They are exposed to death and human suffering and any person would find that difficult to bear. We at home are not helping matters either as we treat them how we treat most all people who have hit a mental crisis point, we skirt the topic and instead of treating them and helping them we tell them to just get over it

Suicide is known as one of the leading cause of death in the United States. This topic affects people of all ages, demographics, gender, and social economic status every day. Police officers have one of the most dangerous and stressful job in the world because they are chasing perpetrators and seeing unexpected disturbing things. In addition, these life events sometimes lead to physical, emotional, and psychological issues.

While it is obvious that the level of stress that law enforcement professionals endure is extremely wearing, which is made very clear through the various readings, I would disagree that police officers/ law enforcement professionals have the highest rate of suicide. While the reading suggests that the availability of a gun has an impact on the rate of suicide on law enforcement professionals, I feel that those who struggle with mental health are equally capable of ending their lives with or without a gun. Through having, access to a gun does increase the odds of suicide; a person with severe mental health such as a dope dealer with a balloon of dope in his/ her pocket would have the same odds of committing suicide as the law enforcement professional. Though there are numerous jobs/ professions that do have a direct correlation to higher rates of suicide, I feel that the mental health piece is the presenting issue, and is exacerbated by the stresses/ stimuli within their environments.

McNeil (2012) brought upon the unforeseen issue of police suicides in the published article titled Police Officer Suicide: It’s Time to Talk about It. One issue of police officer safety that is often overlooked is police officer suicides. Police officers are more likely to die from suicide than being killed on the line. According to McNeil, police officer suicides are in an “alarming higher rate than the general population,” and it is remarkable that 145 police officers die yearly. (Id, p.1) There is a great need in the field to maintain officer mental wellness and prevent officer suicides. This article reflects that police officer suicides are an issue; how it can be fixed in the future and what the major cause is. This article review summarizes what McNeil is willing to change about police suicides.

Stress counseling has become a staple in the status quo of law enforcement. This is due to the discovery of post-shooting trauma that exists with officers who have experienced a justified homicide. It tends to stick with many of them, the stress and negative feelings surfacing through dreams, flashbacks and could result in hesitance to perform in like manner in the future. To counteract this, agencies require that the officers who exhibit these symptoms and others to undergo stress counseling and either use an impartial internal counselor or outsource to local counselors to conduct the sessions and sign off on officers who are competent enough to return to work. Due to the untrusting nature of police officers, it's difficult to get them to

The police officers who responded to the attack were also reported as a high suicide risk group due to their experience of the terror attack. Data was obtained from a phone cop hotline from 2001-2004 and researchers found that suicide ideation calls increased and urgent care suicide calls increased 1.65 times compared to pre-9/11 data (Violanti,