Traumatised ex-cops and soldiers

Looks like austerity is a big factor when it comes to trauma in ex forces and emergency response communities. There is the trauma of the job itself and then there is the trauma of there not being enough money to pay to live. Of course this will lead to addictions in order to find ways of coping.

How many cops altogether ?

This government page says 140,228

Attrition / Salary

About 10% of new cops leave before their probation is up. And the salary is not enough for many to live on.

Suiciding Cops

Accessing data re: suicided cops isn’t that easy.

If a cop kills themself it takes a while for the coroner to assess the death.

So the figures get updated after year end

The public requests stats from the Office of National Statistics, but they invariably reply in their own time and in their own way.

This is the most recent clear ONS data I can find – 2018.

Though there are lots of words in this 2022 Oscar Kilo police suicide prevention material, I see no stats.

More police die via suicide than on duty – but is that because so few die on duty in Britain?

FORCES

A relatively recent report from the Office for Veterans. I don’t think this organisation has much prestige in government. When I came across it around August – it felt like lots of Ministers signed off on the report but few were taking any ownership.

6.8080_CO_OVA_Strategy_Action_Plan_DRAFT_V6_WEB

A study into veterans suicide was published in December last year

The basic conclusion was that the longer you serve in the military the less likely you are to kill yourself – the shorter you serve the more likely you are to end your own life.

The research was conducted by looking at MoD and NHS data re: 458,000 veterans.

About 1,000 took their lives. They say this is the same as the civilian population.

But they would want to make things look as rosy as possible, wouldn’t they?

The 2021 census produced the following stats: