Developing a Plan: Helping a Department Heal After a Police Suicide (From Suicide and Law Enforcement, P 71-81, 2001, Donald C. Sheehan and Janet I. Warren, eds. -- See NCJ-193528)

• NCJ Number: 193535
• Author(s): Dennis Conroy
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: US Dept of Justice
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper submitted to the Suicide and Law Enforcement Conference, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA, September 1999.

Annotation

This article discusses some of the psychological effects of a police suicide on department employees and provides guidelines for the development of a departmental protocol for dealing with officer suicides.

Abstract

Some of the problematic effects of an officer suicide include the dysfunctional displacement of anger by other officers toward the dead officer; the development of factions in the department based on differing perspectives of the causes and religious significance of the suicide; varying officer reactions to the suicide based on individual mental health status; and varying reactions based on the location and method of the suicide. A police department should have a detailed protocol for dealing with a police suicide. Because there is a tendency for members of the department to have different responses to a suicide, the protocol should be very structured. A formal structure prevents the departmental response from being a reflection of the officer's popularity or standing with police management. In providing guidelines for the development of a protocol, this article focuses on notification to the appropriate people, media relations, cleaning the location of the suicide with a professional cleaning crew, establishing an ongoing liaison with the deceased officer's family, and making available departmental resources to assist individual officers in dealing with the suicide.