Suicide is an increasing problem that the entire world has to find ways to control. According the World Health Organization (WHO) in the last 50 years suicide rates have increased by over 60 percent (WHO, 2009). A recent study has shown that police officers have a rate of suicide that is more than double the rate of the general population (Lewis, 2014). And yet, another study in 2013 demonstrated that there is not an open discussion of suicide in police culture because suicide is viewed as dishonorable in policing (Bond, 2014). The higher rate of suicides in law enforcement and the police culture not to talk about it are an obvious problem and area of increasing concern. Police administration and leadership need to recognize these issues and find ways to prevent them from occurring, or at least from happening at a higher rate than the general population.
Introduction.
A recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that approximately 1 million people successfully commit suicide each and every year (Robinson, Segal & Smith, 2014). In most of these cases the person that committed suicide did not want to die, they just wanted the emotional or physical pain that they were experiencing to stop (Robinson et al., 2014). According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the United States in 2007, and there are an estimated 11 attempts of suicide per every successful suicide (NIMH, 2014). The World Health Organization estimated in 2009 that the number of attempts of suicide in comparison to suicide deaths were closer to 20 attempts per every suicide death (WHO, 2009). .
Suicide is obviously a major problem in the world and certainly an area of great concern in the United States. However, the suicide rate in law enforcement does not remain consistent with the general population. A recent study has shown that the rate of suicide deaths for New York City Police (NYPD) officers is 29 per every 100,000 while the general population had a rate of only 12 per 100,000 (Lewis, 2014).
