Suicides: cops need mental help

It is shocking that, since 2017, more than 300 police officers in South Africa have committed suicide – a rate which makes our law enforcement service the worst in the world in that area.

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) says that although there are employee health and wellness programmes in operation in the SA Police Service, these are largely reactive in nature, with experts only visiting officers in negative circumstances.

“They never seem to conduct proactive visits to ensure that the members are coping with their work or personal lives,” the union said.

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It goes without saying that policing as a career will expose officers to repeated trauma, both personal and as third parties. There is also the constant pressure of fear.

But, in addition to that, says Popcru, there is “stress caused by the lack of resources, staff shortages, unfair disciplinary issues and over-indebtedness, among others”.

We would agree with the union that health and wellness should be made a regular and mandatory part of the training and assessment of officers – especially for those in high-stress deployments.

Apart from the human and compassionate reasons, the fact is that highly stressed and suicidal officers cannot hope to do their jobs properly.

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