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Towards a suicide-responsive police culture: police experiences of working with suicide

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journal contribution
posted on 2024-08-20, 09:02 authored by Michelle O’Reilly, Barney Thorne, Philippa Smith, Nikki Kiyimba

Across the globe suicide rates are creating concern, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that suicide is the responsibility of everyone. The WHO recognises that police have an important role in suicide prevention and the management of mental health crises. We suggest that police officers and staff are inevitably impacted by the emotional labour of meeting the demands of this aspect of the role. We argue for more research attention on the experiences and views of police who work with suicide. This study comprised qualitative reflective interviews with police in the UK, Guyana and New Zealand, with the focus on identifying commonalities in experience across the three locations. Four themes were generated through reflective thematic analysis: (1) the context; (2) the traumatic impact; (3) the difficult aspects of this work and (4) organisational opportunities for supporting police officers and staff. Our data illustrated that suicide is qualitatively different from other forms of death, and the nature of the work did have considerable emotional and traumatic impact on police. We conclude our paper with several recommendations for police forces to build their welfare support for staff. These recommendations could help promote a healthier workforce and recognise the specific issues associated with this part of the role.

Funding

Institutional Strategic Support Fund

Wellcome Trust

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History

Author affiliation

College of Social Sci Arts and Humanities Criminology, Sociology & Social Policy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Policing and Society

Pagination

1 - 17

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

issn

1043-9463

eissn

1477-2728

Acceptance date

2024-06-10

Copyright date

2024

Available date

2024-08-20

Language

en

Deposited by

Dr Michelle O'Reilly

Deposit date

2024-08-19

Rights Retention Statement

  • No

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