Police driven to suicide
Up to four officers take their own lives every year
POLICE officers are being driven to suicide and others are suffering from burnout due to ‘critical stress levels’, MSPs have been told.
The leader of rank and file officers said up to four officers a year took their own lives – including two deaths and two attempts recently – amid mounting pressures.
Police Scotland highlighted rising numbers of call-outs to non-criminal incidents from vulnerable people making ‘last resort’ calls.
Scottish Police Federation chairman David Hamilton told Holyrood’s criminal justice committee yesterday: ‘People are burning out because they are so busy with things – not least mental health calls – but are just not getting a chance to get away from work.
‘It’s these critical stress levels that people are beginning to burn out on. All the data tells us officers are beginning to fail.’
He quoted research showing that some 45 per cent of officers said they were experiencing high or moderate levels of burnout, while a third were going to work mentally unwell.
Police Scotland representatives were unable to say exactly how many staff members had committed suicide.
But Mr Hamilton said: ‘I can tell you that there have been two recently, and there have been two attempts recently.’
He said it is a problem which ‘seems to come in clusters’ with between two and four suicides ‘on an almost yearly basis’.
John Hawkins, assistant chief constable of local policing north at Police Scotland, told the committee just one in five calls to the police is now about a crime. He said: ‘There are 3.2 million calls every year. Fewer than 20 per cent result in a crime being recorded.
‘Overwhelmingly, the calls are in the vulnerability space, including mental health.’
He said there has been a 60 per cent increase in ‘adult concern calls’ in the past five years, where people raise concerns about a member of the public, and a 36 per cent increase in child concern calls to police. And he added that 50,000 working days, 1.6 per cent of total working days, were lost to psychological disorders in 2021/22.
Scottish Conservative community safety spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘I would have expected Police Scotland and the SNP government to at least have a record of officer suicides, both on and off duty.
‘There is an abundance of evidence about the severe pressure many are under. We need to give them our full support.’
For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116 123 – or visit www.samaritans.org