Police Suicide: Tactics for Prevention

ISBN: 039807335X

Author: Dell P. Hackett

Condition: Used

The range of information in this book is broad and offers strategies and tactics that may help to prevent suicides. It was written by several skilled and caring professionals, and it was their aim to give law enforcement officers, administrators, and mental health professionals additional information and skills in dealing with law enforcement officers in crisis. It will be interesting and useful to those who would read it with the intention of understanding this dilemma faced by law enforcement and who have a desire to continue the search for possible solutions. The book contains far more than that which would usually come to mind concerning the subject of self-destructive behavior. Its main focus concerns such diverse and very important areas as the police culture, the supervisor's role in intervention, departmental denial of the problem, getting officers to seek help, family issues, and survivor issues. All are intended to get the reader closer to being able to identify officers who may be in harms way, offer solutions to those who seek help, and hopefully prevent police suicides. Only recently has the identification of police stress and the subsequent counterproductive behaviors been exposed and accepted within the culture. We have learned that the police occupation is different from all others and that it is all right to be different. This new understanding may also provide a potential remedy for some of law enforcement's greatest ills: alcohol abuse, family abuse, and the subsequent consequences. It is the hope, therefore, that the information in this book will prevent future suicides and even reverse the thinking that leads to such life-ending decisions. It is a 'must read' for law enforcement officers, probation and parole officers, supervisors, mental health professionals, educators, criminal justice students and professors. It is complete and well researched; a cooperative effort, not a competitive one; a journey of discovery and hope.