The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Police officers in Los Angeles are more likely to take their own life than be killed by a criminal, according to a report presented today to the Police Commission.
The data was included in a study by police psychologists who are in the process of retooling the agency’s suicide prevention program.
The report said 19 Los Angeles police officers killed themselves between 1998 and 2007, while only seven died in the line of duty during that time.
Psychologists calculated in the report that suicide rates among police officers in Los Angeles are higher than their counterparts in Chicago and New York.
Suicides are even more prevalent among police officers in San Diego than Los Angeles, the report said.
Kevin Jablonski, chief psychiatrist for the Los Angeles Police Department, pinned the high suicide rates on the mental anguish that comes from policing dangerous streets.
“When you interact day after day, hour after hour with either the victims of crime or the perpetrators of crime, you start thinking this world is dangerous, this world is violent,” he said. “It’s depressing.”
Department psychologists said in their report that the suicide rate among Los Angeles officers had decreased more than 20 percent since 1998, when the department made a push to increase suicide prevention services.
Still, Jablonski said more needs to be done to make sure officers know treatment is available for conditions that lead to suicide, such as depression and alcoholism.
Staff are planning a revamped suicide prevention program that includes new training for supervisors to respond to potential problems, as well as wallet cards and dashboard stickers directing officers to sources of counseling, he said.