Why We Need Mandatory Reporting of Police Officer Suicides

Psychologist Marla Friedman and I both work with clients who are afraid to fly. We have had many discussions about how to help clients deal with stress both in the air and on the ground.

Dr. Friedman also works with police departments to help them identify—and get into treatment— officers whose exposure to trauma, to the worst in humanity, and to life-and-death stress has put them at risk of suicide. She is the Chairman of Badge of Life, a non-profit organization focused on officer mental health and suicide prevention.

Dr. Friedman's experience has made it clear to her that suicide is a serious occupational threat for police officers. She is convinced that the extent of the threat is not reflected in the statistics. The number of police suicides, she says, is much higher than reported. I asked her why she believes this is true.

Friedman: Officers are under tremendous stress for a myriad of reasons. Suicide for many occupations is known to be on the rise. I'm sure that is true about law enforcement. But who gathers data on police officer suicide? At this moment, there are no government or private organizations that require mandatory reporting of police officer suicides. None.

Bunn: Where, then, do the reported numbers come from?

Friedman: I see numbers published nationally and internationally about the number of suicides in the law enforcement community. None of these numbers are based on reliable sources.

Bunn: What sources are being used?

Friedman: Social media, reports from friends, and other officers. Using Facebook to collect data is unscientific. Nevertheless, major publications are putting out articles on officer suicide with numbers based on what is said about an officer's death on social media or discussed behind closed doors. Even government documents cite numbers based on social media and rumor as though they were accurate.

Bunn: Why social media?

Friedman: Social media is considered by many as the new news. It’s not.

Tom Bunn: Why are some officer suicides not reported?

Friedman: There are reasons why an officer's family may not want it known that the officer committed suicide. One is stigma. Another is the family's desire to maintain an image of the officer as strong and heroic; that doesn't fit with suicide. And in some jurisdictions, there are financial considerations. Benefits to the officer's family may be cut off if the officer's death is officially reported as suicide. The police department and the family may work together to give another cause of death to safeguard the payment of benefits.

Bunn: I've read that about 500 police officers were on duty at the Capitol on January 6th. Since then, four officers have committed suicide. They may have experienced, in one day, the stress and trauma most police officers accumulate in years. This nearly 1 percent suicide rate is shocking. Could this rate be representative of police officers in general?

Friedman: We’ll never really know without a psychological autopsy. Those of us who work with the police to try to prevent suicide couldn’t be more disappointed with agencies that continue to support numbers based on rumor instead of lobbying to require mandatory reporting of the cause of all law enforcement deaths.

Bunn: Isn't it often difficult to determine what is and is not suicide? For example, death can result when anti-anxiety medication is mixed with painkillers, alcohol, or street drugs. In some cases the overdose is unintentional; the person is just looking for relief and overdoes it. In some cases, what looks like an unintentional overdose is intentional.

Friedman: Yes. Mixed in with the more obvious suicides are deaths due to substances. These are rarely listed as possible suicide if the fatality is a police officer.

Bunn: What about other stressors that, though they don't result in suicide, lead to the death is that of a police officer?

Friedman: The list is long. There are cardiac problems, sleep shift disorder, trauma, depression, and anxiety disorders, as well as other extremely important concerns. Mandatory reporting could provide data needed for the law enforcement community to understand causation and to develop programs more specific to the problems that exist.

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We are blindly accepting false numbers when accurate information could provide salient data that could be scientifically studied. Accurate data would help all of us who train officers target the areas where it is most important to build resilience and mental, emotional, and physical health.

Bunn: What is the take-away message you would like the public and people with influence to know?

Friedman. Question the numbers presented. Ask why numbers are being used that are not vetted? And why don't we have mandatory reporting?

Numbers that mislead do a disservice to all our officers, their families, their friends, the departments they work for, and the whole community they serve. It’s disrespectful to allow inaccurate numbers to stand in the way of preventative services that surely would be implemented if the scope of the suicide problem, and the disabling stress problem, were made known.