Suicide Prevention Is Dead Wrong

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PRESS RELEASE (10/9/23): It has been nearly a century since the first documented suicide of a law enforcement officer in the United States. For decades we have ignored the issue, even turning a blind eye to the issues plaguing our first responders. More current practices have included bringing awareness to the stigma that surrounds mental health. However, research indicates mental health issues are not the main issue in law enforcement suicides.

Real meaningful change seems to allude us while we continue to the next prevention program, catchy slogans, clichés, and mantras, all of which do nothing to reduce mortality. Suicide prevention programs fail to address the severity and complexity of the issue in any meaningful manner. Millions of dollars are invested in these types of programs every year with little positive return on investment. Prevention programs operate in a post-vention paradigm after a death has occurred. Nothing can be done for that officer, that family, or that agency. We are losing the battle with the current paradigm. The status quo is literally killing us. We continue chasing good intentions that promote trendy redundancy over research while funding grants that provide no true life-saving benefits. The new trend is to blame the “job” as the responsible factor for officer suicide. Any personal responsibility and accountability have been removed from the officer and placed on the agency. This is not only unfair, but it is inaccurate and not supported by the research as a leading factor in death by suicide. Following this reasoning we could expect to see line-of-duty benefits actually paying out for officer suicide deaths.

Suicide is an issue and a leading cause of death among first responders, but it is not an epidemic. The only research of its kind is being conducted by Dr. Olivia Johnson, Founder of the Blue Wall Institute looks at over 120 data points and some 700 cases of completed suicide, murder-suicide, and non-fatal attempts using autopsy, toxicology, police reports, social media accounts, interviews, etc., and developed a risk assessment protocol that identifies risk factors, red flags, and problematic behaviors known as The FATAL 10. This assessment protocol is used to “inoculate” officers against the known risk factors before major issues arise.

When looking at an issue that involves life and death, politics and popularity should never be part of the equation. We all want to reduce the loss of life but let us try a different paradigm this time. The question should not be ‘What do we have to lose because we already know the answer, but rather, what do we have to gain?’