How many police suicides are work related?
A. NONE (so say chiefs of police). According to departments across the US in 2008 and 2009, not a single police suicide was attributable to the stress and trauma of the job. According to these same police chiefs, police work is a highly stressful, traumatic job. They admit the job the work can cause severe emotional trauma and PTSD (some departments still try to “outlaw” PTSD–see our Canada page). When a suicide occurs on a department, however, everyone forgets all this, though. Even in the most obvious case of horrific trauma on the job, no officer or police chief is willing to admit the possibility that the death had anything to do with the job. It was a “weakness” on the part of the officer. The officer had personal problems. It was the spouse’s fault. It certainly had nothing to do with PTSD from the job.
