Suicide has long been a problem in the United States. Often, people become so overwhelmed by the circumstances of their own lives that they feel the need to escape. Sometimes, a person may choose to "escape" via suicide simply because he or she is unable to deal with the stress in his or her life. Everyone has stress. Nobody lives an idealistic, stress-free life. However, some professions place more demands on their workers than others. One such profession is police work. Police work is one of the most stressful professions in America, so it comes as no surprise that more police officers resort to suicide. However, the true question is why do police officers commit suicide? What can be done to prevent suicide in police work?
             Statistics regarding the true state of the police suicide epidemic may be difficult to obtain. According to Burge, police departments are hesitant to allow the public to access any documents relevant to the issue of suicide in the force (1982 in Violanti, 1995). The Southern Medical Journal reported that the reason for such hesitation is the need to keep the internal workings of a police department from public criticism and scrutiny (Horvitz, 1994). Suicide in the force may be considered a dishonorable act. It may be seen as an insult to both the victim's family, as well as the victim's department. Perhaps that is one reason why research shows that 67% of police suicides in Chicago have been incorrectly listed as either a natural death or as an accident (Wagner and Brzeczek, 1983 in Violanti, 1995). Because of this, much of the information regarding police officer suicide could be a vast under-representation of reality.
             That is not to say that the statistics that are given are not startling enough. One must realize that the suicide rate among police officers has doubled over the past decade (Violanti and Vena, 1995 in Violanti, 1995). For instance, statistics show that for every ...