Law enforcement leaders know that their employees care about their departments, colleagues, and their communities, yet, the truth is, they may struggle to care for themselves and their families. They fight brutal battles for their communities—yet every day, agency employees are working in silence regarding their own needs—or they are screaming from the rooftops and going unheard. They may have problems at home, be nearing the end of their marriages, have relationships outside the home, not have relationships with their children, work too much overtime, and be burying themselves financially. They might call in sick or late; have difficulties building good relationships with coworkers; and be angry, bitter, or disgruntled. Perhaps, they are drinking too much or taking too many pills to numb the pain of a career that they once greatly loved.
Why are the employees that once were the epitome of the great cop, officer, or employee of the year, the ones chiefs fought so hard to hire, the ones with the clean background, the excellent credit, and the happy, healthy family now struggling so hard to survive or, in too many cases, are not fighting anymore? Sadly, the suicide rate among law enforcement is twice the line-of-duty deaths.1 These dedicated employees are killing themselves twice as often as others are killing them. Why? Is it the stigma of asking for help in a profession where a perception of weakness can end their career? Is it because there is a culture in their department that says, “Don’t ask for help; you’ll be punished”? Is it because the profession has a culture of not being trauma-informed professionals, especially when addressing their own officers? Leaders or officers may understand the need to be trauma-informed but feel that it applies to everyone but themselves. Trauma exists. It exists in departments; it exists in employees and in communities. Police employees and leaders must understand it.
A lack of knowledge in dealing with trauma on anyone’s part, whether it be one’s employees or the community one serves, can have deadly consequences. Many individuals are deeply affected by trauma, and, as the saying goes, “hurt people, hurt people.” These dynamics affect the department and the community—both in the response the public receives from agencies and how law enforcement personnel care for each other.
Undoubtedly, police chiefs and executive leaders are confronting unprecedented times while leading police officers and civilian law enforcement employees. With the current anti-police sentiment, defunding the police movement, recruiting issues, staffing shortages, burnout, and an all-time high in law enforcement suicides, the challenges have never been more significant for leaders. Police chiefs and executive staff have many pressures—and being vulnerable is hard. The road to healing can be long and difficult, with few resources for people in leadership positions regarding peer support or mental health care.
With all that is going on, police departments are led by professionals steeped in their own trauma. Many of them not only lack the resources but feel that they cannot allow themselves to be vulnerable or feel pain, and, if they do feel pain, they may lack the knowledge to get help in healing themselves, let alone assist in helping their employees. Today’s heroes are being led by the walking wounded of past generations with unhealed past trauma. Leaders often lose sight of the fact that they can be hard-charging, open, honest, strong, and confident, yet still model behavior that exudes vulnerability and good physical and mental health. Checking a box is no longer acceptable for individuals in this profession. Officers desperately need to see that their leaders care about them and their well-being. Organizational stress, a culture of fear regarding seeking mental health treatment, and peer stigma (real or perceived) have created barriers for employees who feel they need help.2 End the barriers; end the stigma.
During these trying times, the health and wellness of all employees are essential as the challenges will only become more significant. Both officers and civilian employees must be equipped for current and future physical and mental challenges.
While times are indeed challenging, it is incumbent on chiefs to put their employees first over the next piece of great equipment or program. Without these dedicated employees, no piece of equipment will matter. A healthy employee makes for a healthy department, leading to a healthy response to the community. Regardless of a community’s size or crime rate, the officers driving the beat will set the tone. They deserve to be safe, but they also deserve to be well.
“Officers desperately need to see that their leaders care about them and their well-being.”
Currently, police officers are dying 22 years younger than the general population due to medical conditions primarily attributed to the lifestyle choices and stress of the job.3 These are staggering statistics for a profession that hires seemingly well-functioning. healthy adults from the onset. They are in good physical and psychological shape. Unfortunately, the policing profession and its culture are not kind to personnel, and police employees are often unkind to each other. It has been said many times that leaders can set the tone for many projects, training, and philosophies, but if the agency’s culture is not trauma-informed and the department does not live by this information, all can be lost.
What can leaders in policing do to evaluate the current culture and identify where there needs to be change? A head-to-toe triage of a department’s health and wellness is a great start. Leaders should ask themselves what their department looks like from the inside out. Whom are they recruiting? Who is reviewing backgrounds of potential hires, and how thorough are they? Is the psychologist reviewing candidates for past trauma and screening them accordingly? Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been known to affect adulthood and law enforcement careers.4 Screening for these is not a way to exclude otherwise perfect candidates but to support them in their healing and growth as officers or civilian employees by keeping in mind that their past experiences may still affect them. Many of those serving in policing carry the baggage of past trauma, whether it be childhood trauma or combat action. That said, they can be affected by trauma and still make the best employees, depending on how the trauma affects them now and what they are doing about it. With all the resources invested in recruiting, hiring, and training these officers, it’s time to ask if agencies are doing the best to help officers thrive. Does the academy teach new officers how to survive threats and critical incidents and to thrive physically and psychologically after these events? Are these concepts reinforced through field training and annual in-service training? Are employees learning how to be resilient? Finally, are leaders modeling these skills at the executive level?
What is morale like? Are people bitter and disgruntled or as happy as they can be in today’s environment? Are there retention issues or are people habitually calling in sick? Do employees get along, or do they attack each other? Does the organization have a supportive environment?
Is there a culture of real wellness support? Are there incentives for health and wellness? Is there a well-vetted, trained, and trusted peer support team? Is there a culturally competent mental health provider genuinely concerned about officers’ wellness? Leaders should seek one who will explore all avenues of vetted resources available to the agency, no matter the agency’s budget or the provider’s own profit margin, and make sure employees of all ranks are trauma informed.
If the answers to these questions reveal gaps, finding solutions will determine a department’s success or failure in serving its community. There is hope. There are resources.
According to the American Psychological Association, “trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, or natural disaster.”5 No one has to tell those in law enforcement what trauma looks like—they see it every day when taking calls and patrolling the streets. Agency leaders can also see it in the faces of their employees walking the hallways and in the meetings they attend. On any given day, there is trauma in policing. Employees’ reactions can include physiological and psychological responses, which lead to symptoms that are not well understood and are often ignored. Even if personnel recognize what is happening to them, they have been taught to hide it or that experiencing trauma is the ordinary sacrifice made by first responders. “This is how they said it would be in the academy,” is what officers tell themselves. They might reach out to a coworker or supervisor who is not trauma informed and get a wide variety of incorrect responses because the colleague does not know any better. These same traumatized officers and supervisors are sent on calls to homes with traumatized community members and then question why many officers seem incapable of exhibiting empathy and understanding. These officers and supervisors suffer from trauma response, something they do not understand or perceive as a sign of weakness. They also struggle with secondary trauma from seeing so much trauma in their daily work that they cannot even muster the emotional strength to care anymore, even if they want to. This emotional fatigue can lead to apathy, anger, irritability, shortened attention, and burnout.
“Trauma-informed leadership will ensure that the inevitable challenges are met with empathy and compassion.”
The answer is simple. Just like there are requests for trauma-informed doctors and clinicians to treat officers and civilian employees suffering from physical and mental injury or disorder, police organizations should also expect employees and supervisors across all ranks to be trauma informed to better care for themselves and the community they swore to protect and serve.6 Trauma-informed employees and leadership are essential for any well-functioning department. Many responsibilities of ensuring employees remain healthy lay upon the senior leadership and their ability to recognize the problems and solutions related to burnout.7 Supervisors need to be encouraged to lead with education, empathy, and understanding and see this modeled by agency leaders, as well.
This trauma-informed culture can happen only through education, preparation, and concern. Officers need to be educated on the serious side effects and symptoms of trauma, and how those effects can cause problems in their lives and the lives of their families. In addition, agencies should provide education on how these symptoms and side effects can be minimized through treatment and by supporting each other in crisis situations. Officers must be prepared for the traumatic events they will indeed see but often cannot stop. However, they should not be left to go through horrific events and then deal with them alone; they should be trained in and see examples of healthy coping and healing strategies. Mitigating these concerns can help develop resilient leaders who mentor resilient employees and supervisors.8
Starting in the academy, incoming police officers should be trained in what trauma looks like and how to respond to it if they see it in themselves, coworkers, or community members. Training should not touch on just the obvious signs but the thousands of subtle cues that may be missed along the way, leading a once stellar officer to get involved in a serious internal affairs investigation. This education should continue throughout officers’ careers and include training on how they talk to each other and to the community about their trauma. There must be authentic, active listening and psychological first aid utilized throughout all ranks and assignments. There should be education on minimizing the effects of this psychological drain on the profession. Essential training should include resiliency, nutrition, exercise, meditation, and stress management training. Concepts can be introduced to offer support and education without judgment. Finally, agency members must care and be concerned about their coworkers and leaders—and leaders must exhibit authentic and genuine care about the well-being of those that serve the agency (even “challenging” employees).
Many leaders are struggling to finance their departments with limited budgets. The challenges in making these decisions are not lost on anyone who has had to cut desperately needed expenditures. In determining which expenditure to cut and which to keep, consider whether it is worthwhile to provide millions of dollars in equipment to physically and mentally unwell officers and leaders or if some funding is better directed toward ensuring holistic officer wellness. It should be looked at through not only the lens of dollar signs but also the lens of human capital. The good news is that there are grants and funding opportunities specifically for officer mental health and wellness programs, initiatives, training, and other efforts.
Lastly, leadership holds many challenges for law enforcement professionals—not only in fulfilling their mission of providing service to their communities, agencies, and employees but also in addressing the physical and mental health of all of their employees; ensuring there are adequate resources in place for them; and requiring all employees, regardless of rank, to commit to trauma-informed leadership. Trauma-informed leadership will ensure that the inevitable challenges are met with empathy and compassion for an agency’s employees and the community’s health and wellness. d
Notes:
1Olivia Johnson et al., Practical Considerations for Preventing Police Suicide: Stop Officer Suicide (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2022).
2Jacqueline M. Drew and Sherri Martin, “A National Study of Police Mental Health in the USA: Stigma, Mental Health and Help-Seeking Behaviors,” Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 36, no. 2 (2021): 295–306.
3John M. Violanti et al., “Life Expectancy in Police Officers: A Comparison with the U.S. General Population,” International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience 15, no. 4 (2013): 217–228.
4Stephen Levesque, “Carrying Trauma from Birth to Work: Adverse Childhood Experiences in Law Enforcement Officers and Their Implications,” Criminology Student Work (Spring 2021).
5American Psychological Association, “Trauma.”
6Stephanie M. Conn, Increasing Resilience in Police and Emergency Personnel: Strengthening Your Armor (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).
7Richard K. James and B.E. Gilliland, Crisis Intervention Strategies, 8th ed.(Boston, MA: Cengage, 2017).
8Conn, Increasing Resilience in Police and Emergency Personnel.
Please cite as
Cathy Bustos, “Trauma-Informed Leadership,” Police Chief Online, May 24, 2023.
