Lifting the stigma

Police reform law aimed at providing mental health care to officers

• Joseph Darius Jaafari
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  Joseph Darius Jaafari was a staff writer for the PA Post. His work covering crime, the military and LGBTQ issues has been featured in The Marshall Project, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is a graduate of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced for VICE and The New York Post. He is a native Arizonan and infamous for his love of tacos.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed two police reform bills Tuesday that require agencies to change how they handle problem cops, including conducting proper background checks of all new hires and creating a database to archive disciplinary rulings of individual officers.

And though the new laws are touted as a benefit for public health, one of the bills Wolf signed addresses a little talked about issue within police forces: mental health.

Any officer involved in a use-of-force incident will be required to undergo counseling (at no cost to the officer). Officers can also request the counseling, or it can be requested by one of the officer’s supervisors.

Though the bill only addresses police departments, it’s a step in the right direction for some criminal justice reform advocates who have been saying for years that frontline safety workers (firefighters, paramedics and police) are at risk of post-traumatic stress syndrome and other stress-related conditions because of what they see and experience on the job.

“There is a code of secrecy around mental illness in police agencies across the nation, a code that is difficult to break through,” wrote Andy O’Hara, founder of Badge of Life, which tracks suicides among police officers.

He wrote: “More officers die of suicide than die of shootings and traffic accidents combined. It’s a problem that cries out for answers and remedies, but too many departments are reluctant to admit it exists, much less implement programs to address it.”

PTSD and depression are two common traits that come with the job of policing, both for beat cops and officers who work in correctional institutions. But there is very little data on how many officers experience mental health problems. There is currently no federal database that tracks police suicides, and there is no governing body locally that pushes police departments to keep a record.

It was a point in a larger conversation after reports that 10 NYPD officers had committed suicide in 2019 – the highest number the force had seen in recent years. A study published by a researcher at UC Berkeley in 2017 found that California corrections officers were more likely to experience depression, PTSD and suicide.

And though there have been efforts in the past to get the FBI to collect that data, President Trump only recently signed a law that would direct the bureau to collect police and correctional officers’ suicide rates.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who introduced the federal bill in the Senate, said: “Law enforcement officers are at a high risk for mental health challenges and death by suicide, and improving mental health for law enforcement officers is a necessary part of improving policing outcomes. Through this legislation, Congress can better understand the resources needed to support police officers and ensure that those policing our communities are mentally and physically equipped to best serve the public.”

The new Pennsylvania law could be a step in the right direction of eliminating the stigma around mental health in law enforcement and corrections.

If you are someone who has experienced trauma while also on the front lines of public safety work, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us through our Listening Post.

And if you or a loved one is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.

Related reads:

• Politifact: No, police officer is not the job with highest rate of suicide

• ABC: Correctional officer suicides in 2019 tied for most in single year: Union president

• The Morning Call: Did Allentown police do anything wrong in video that sparked protests? One expert says no

• Lehigh Valley Live: In wake of video, Allentown city council members raising ‘systemic reforms’ for police department

• WLVR: Protests block traffic and light up downtown Allentown with calls to “defund the police”

• WITF: Voices of the movement: Meet the women who organized the anti-racist protest in a divided Lebanon

• The Morning Call: Bethlehem police release report on officers’ use of force

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