Critics say removal of state psychologist hurts small agencies
By Stephen Gurr, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle
AIKEN, S.C. -- Barnwell Police Chief Todd Gantt learned how important good emotional counseling was last summer, when one of his officers shot a suspect to death during a struggle.
A peer counseling group coordinated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division came to Barnwell days afterward to “debrief” the officer.
“It allows you to talk to peers who have been in similar positions and become aware that the emotions you’re having are normal,” Chief Gantt said.
Though Chief Gantt has nothing but praise for the group’s work, critics say the absence of any trained mental health professional in the response team spotlights a new problem among small law enforcement agencies in South Carolina.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Criminal Justice Academy cut its staff psychologist position in recent months, so agencies must go elsewhere for pre-employment psychological evaluations and post-incident counseling.
“Right now, it’s more or less up to each individual department,” said J.C. Rowe, the executive director of the South Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police. “It’s just put everybody in a bind.”
Larger departments, including Aiken’s sheriff’s and police forces, have contracts with private mental health providers for the pre-employment evaluations. City and county heath plans also include free counseling.
It’s the small agencies, with tight budgets, that are hit hardest, Mr. Rowe says.
“We have a tremendous amount of small departments in this state,” he said. “This really creates a hardship for them.”
To Mr. Rowe, the state police psychologist’s position “should be the last to go out the door.”
Repeated calls to the Department of Public Safety for comment went unreturned this week.
In response to the perceived void in services, psychologists Dorothy McCoy and Ron Frier, of Columbia, recently formed a partnership to provide private evaluations, stress tests and counseling for South Carolina law enforcement agencies. Their Web site, police-stress.com, went up two months ago.
“I was shocked when they made that cut,” Dr. McCoy said. “Obviously there are a lot of departments that don’t have that service. I would have thought it would be the last to go.”
Dr. McCoy says the isolation, odd-hour shift work, inherit danger in the work and on-again, off-again bursts of activity create the stress that places police officers near the top nationally in divorce rates. At the same time, the public mental health system is woefully overworked, she said.
Most metropolitan police agencies have their own staff psychologists, she says, “because they realize the importance of it.”
“You don’t want to put a person in a situation of being a police officer and having a gun if it’s not a situation they can emotionally handle,” she said.