Police Suicide

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Roughly one hundred and fifty police officers take their lives each year. While there are many factors to any suicide, it has been reported by Circa, a news outlet that covers current events, that the Chicago Police Department has a suicide rate that is 60 percent above the national average. with no plans of actions set in place to protect officers (Hurtado, 2017). A suspected component to suicide is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Police offers experience grueling challenges every day of their career including murders, witnessing rape, violence, and trauma within the community such as car accidents. In fact, Hurtado further states that there is “no solution” for officers. Consequently, with no plan of action intact, the force is only harming officers and their employment. This is because there is a slew of solutions that can be implemented to ensure safety and security for any officer that is dealing with mental illness. …show more content…
A substantial portion of suicide stems from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (post-traumatic stress disorder), a common disorder amongst the police force, despite that it is not brought into awareness. A study provided by The American Journal of Police (Chae & Boyle, 2013) concluded the following: “Studies showed that the interaction of multiple risk factors had a cumulative effect in increasing the risk for suicidal ideation. In total, five prominent aspects of policing were associated with risk for suicidal ideation: organizational stress; critical incident trauma; shift work; relationship problems; and alcohol use and abuse. Studies also indicated that protective factors and preventative measures had stress‐buffering effects which decreased the impact of police