Unveiling the silent battle: Suicide rates among law enforcement personnel

Accurately calculating suicide rates among law enforcement officers has been a longstanding challenge. Since 2016, the nonprofit organization First H.E.L.P. has implemented a standardized and rigorous methodology to collect data on public safety personnel suicides. This study utilizes First H.E.L.P.'s data to examine suicide rates among sworn law enforcement officers from 2016 to 2022, disaggregated by year, sex, and geographic region and division. Findings reveal an average suicide rate of 21.4 per 100,000 officers over the seven-year period, with male officers showing a significantly higher rate (22.7) than their female counterparts (12.7). Regionally, the Midwest (27.5) and Northeast (24.0) had higher suicide rates than the South (19.4) and West (19.7), although variation was noted across divisions within these regions. The paper concludes by exploring potential reasons for these discrepancies and highlighting the potential benefits of systematic data collection in improving our understanding of law enforcement officer suicides.