TRAGIC! DOJ Report Shows Suicide Rate Rising Among Chicago Police Officers

This Justice Department report on the Chicago Police Department says the reason suicides are up among its officers is because of the stress that comes with the job. Maybe there is so much stress because they are put in impossible situations.

This from the Chicago Sun Times:

Buried among the facts and figures in the Justice Department’s recent book-length report on the failings of the Chicago Police Department was a telling statistic: The rate of suicide among CPD officers is 60 percent higher than other departments across the U.S.

Among the ranks of the nearly 10,000 patrol officers of the CPD, an average of three officers will take their own lives each year, according to life insurance claims information from the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the union representing the bulk of the department’s sworn officers. 

Police officers in Chicago have a uniquely difficult job, even among their big-city peers, said Alexa James, a psychologist who served on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force. The expert panel last spring also released a scathing report on the CPD, but James said the authors were aware that individual officers need more support.

“When you have 760 homicides in the city in a year, that’s a war zone — and that’s where [police] are working every day,” said James, who noted the total number of murders in Chicago last year was larger than the tally in Los Angeles and New York, combined.

“It is a hard, hard job, and police officers get very little support,” she said.

This piece speaks mostly about the inability to adequately provide proper mental health support to officers. One has to wonder if they would be a little less stressed if they were freer to perform their duties.

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