Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, you are not alone — and help is always available. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to connect with a trained counselor, or chat online at 988lifeline.org. Whether you’re seeking support for yourself or someone you care about, please know that it’s never too late to reach out. You deserve help. You deserve hope. Someone is ready to listen.
By Jon Zumkehr
I’ve worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons for nearly two decades. In that time, I’ve lost eight coworkers — eight friends — to suicide. Eight. I remember every one of their names. That list keeps getting longer while too many people look away.
Every time I hear another “We care” from agency leaders or politicians, I want to scream. Talk is cheap. Words don’t bring anyone back. They don’t comfort the families left behind. We shouldn’t have to learn about suicide by losing the people we work with.
| MENTAL HEALTH: ‘It is desperately needed': Correctional officers push for mental health protections in suicide prevention bill
In March 2023, Correctional Officer Blake Schwarz died by suicide. His death was another devastating loss for the staff at Thomson Federal Prison. Within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, suicide has taken too many of our colleagues. It is a shadow that follows us home after every shift.
Most people have no idea what it is really like to work in corrections. The hours are brutal. The overtime never ends. We’re treated like numbers, not people. Our families see us come home exhausted, but they don’t always know about the trauma we carry: breaking up fights, cleaning up after an inmate’s suicide, enduring verbal abuse and surviving physical attacks. We’re expected to swallow it all, pretend we’re fine and keep moving.
Women working in federal prisons face another form of abuse. Inmates routinely expose themselves to female staff, while meaningful accountability is inconsistent. At Thomson alone, union and media accounts have documented hundreds of sexual misconduct incidents against staff in recent years — and those are only the incidents that were reported.
“It’s just part of the job,” we’re told.
Imagine being told that sexual harassment is routine while meaningful mental health support remains almost nonexistent.
If you say you’re struggling — if you admit you’re thinking about suicide — you may fear losing everything: your job, your reputation and your livelihood. So we keep it in. Some drink too much. Relationships fall apart. Yet correctional officers are still left out of many first responder mental health initiatives.
The Senate version of the Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act includes safe-harbor protections intended to allow staff to seek treatment without automatically losing their jobs. Imagine if we treated a mental health crisis the way we treat a physical injury and gave employees the time and space to recover. If you fracture a leg and struggle at work, it is socially acceptable to seek help. If you go to a hospital and say you’re having suicidal thoughts, you may fear what it will mean for your career. That fear keeps staff silent.
Nobody checks on your mental health after you’re assaulted, after human waste is thrown on you or after you witness things most people could not imagine. I’ve been attacked. I’ve bled. I went back to work the next day, trying to prove I wasn’t weak. Nobody checked on my mental health.
I learned to block everything out. I still hear from coworkers who feel they have nowhere to turn. We keep surviving, one day at a time.
I’ve sat with staff members and called the Employee Assistance Program at 1 a.m., only to be told that help would be available at 8 a.m. at a location nearly four hours away. Another time, I called with a staff member and was directed to help more than two hours away. That is our reality. Mental health care is not accessible if a person in crisis must wait hours or travel across the state to receive it.
Research has repeatedly identified serious mental health risks among corrections professionals. Research summarized by the Vera Institute of Justice points to serious mental health risks among corrections professionals. Vera cited a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice literature review that referenced an earlier study finding an average correctional officer lifespan of 59 years — 16 years below the national average at the time. Other research has found elevated rates of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide among corrections staff. Some studies have reported PTSD rates comparable to those among military veterans and suicide rates higher than those among police officers.
The Government Accountability Office added management of the federal prison system to its High-Risk List in 2023, citing longstanding challenges with staffing, resources and program management. The agency has also warned that the Bureau of Prisons’ increasing reliance on overtime to cover vacancies is not a solution because officer fatigue threatens prison safety.
Forced overtime remains the norm in many facilities, and every extra hour adds to the strain. Still, we’re told correctional officers can never be weak.
That stigma is killing us.
That is why I could no longer sit on the sidelines. After Blake’s death in March 2023, I went to Washington, D.C. With help from our local union, we worked with Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Rep. Eric Sorensen to introduce the Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act.
The House bill was reintroduced in 2025. In May 2026, Sen. Tammy Duckworth introduced a bipartisan Senate companion. The legislation would establish grants supporting mental health screenings, referrals and services for correctional officers. It would also create safe-harbor protections for officers who seek mental health treatment.
The suicide rate among correctional officers is estimated to be about seven times higher than the rate among the general population. But we are not statistics. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, spouses and friends. We deserve the chance to ask for help without fearing that doing so will cost us our careers.
We’re not waiting for Congress to do everything. We have taken action ourselves.
We partnered with The Gray Matters Collective to train 24 staff members in suicide prevention. We placed 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline signs at the sally port and magnets with mental health resources in stations and break rooms. We’ve held suicide prevention walks at Thomson and brought in local support organizations. We also started a support group for first responders and correctional officers led by a licensed therapist.
It is a start. It is not enough.
We need mental health advocates at Thomson, at every prison and across the country. We need Congress to step up. We need the Bureau of Prisons to step up. We cannot survive on empty promises.
I’m tired. We’re all tired. Correctional officers are dying. Their families are left to grieve, while the rest of us pick up the pieces and wonder who will be next.
Say you care, but show it. Pass the Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act. Give correctional officers the support and dignity we need to heal. Give us the chance to live.