Police Suicide And Its Effects - 1720 Words

Introduction The primary purpose of this term paper is to talk about police suicide and whether or not it is preventable. While police suicide is an huge issue, the public do not hear much about it nor have enough information. Therefore, it is important to let the public know that it is an issue by spreading awareness and creating prevention methods. Important questions that should be asked are : What is suicide? Why are police officers committing suicide? How many police officers are committing suicide? Can police suicide be prevented? Have guidelines been created in efforts to prevent police suicide? How does the suicide of an officer affect other officers? Identifying the Problem Suicide is when a person purposely takes their own†¦show more content†¦While conducting their studies, Chae and Boyle found that when multiple factors occurred it increased the risk of an officer wanting to commit suicide (2013). Some of the multiple factors mentioned were shift work, critical incidents, stress, and relationship problems (Chae and Boyle, 2013). While officers may have suicide on their minds, most of them do not automatically commit suicide. According to Nanavaty, some of the officers that have committed suicide have shown warning signs (2015). Therefore, it is extremely important for the public, family, friends, and co-workers to be able to identify the warning signs so that an officer from committing suicide can be prevented. Causes for Police Suicide What affects one person does not necessarily affect another person. Police officers have different reasons as to why they commit suicide. There are many causes for committing suicide such as depression, death, retirement, loneliness, stress, relationship problems, alcohol abuse, burnout and physical pain. Most officers do not commit suicide because of just one cause in fact, many officers experience more than one cause at once. Take for example depression, it is a serious illness and because of it officers can lack motivation, not wanting to live, and have a lot of stress. The officer could have stress because of what they have been exposed to such as trauma, irregular work hours, problems in the work force, long periods of