By Michael Pittaro
InPublicSafety.com
During my undergraduate education and on-the-job training as a young corrections officer starting in 1989, I was exposed to a plethora of research that focused on the various causes of and responses to prisoner suicides. Yet throughout my 20-year career in corrections, very little (if any) attention was paid to the issue of correctional officer suicides. Discussion of suicide within the profession was a taboo topic because corrections employees were not supposed to appear emotionally vulnerable or fragile. After all, emotional vulnerability often equates to emotional instability, which is perceived to be a weakness within the profession.
There has been much written concerning suicide among law enforcement officers, but very little about suicide among correctional officers. As a university professor, I teach law enforcement and corrections courses. In my law enforcement courses, we go into great depth about the risks of stress, burnout, depression, and suicide rates among police officers, but in my corrections courses the topic is rarely, if ever, discussed.
Full story: Suicide Among Corrections Officers: It’s Time for an Open Discussion
