Police departments struggle with mental health

Nashville, Tennessee — The biggest concerns and risks for law enforcement, experts say, are how police officers manage their own mental health and how they treat those with mental illnesses.

The working conditions for police officers are becoming increasingly stressful as there are staff shortages in many departments.

And with training times shorter overall, police officers need targeted training on how to recognize when they are dealing with a person with mental health issues and how to respond, they said during presentations at the Public Risk Management Association’s annual conference last month.

Police shortages have led to an increase in overtime, which sometimes leads to officers calling in sick to avoid working overtime after the end of their shift, said Greg Veitch of Saratoga Springs, New York, a retired police chief and founder of the risk management consulting firm Noble Cause Training and Development.

“This is not a sustainable way of policing,” he said.

Longer shifts and more stressful working conditions are also leading to an increase in workers’ compensation claims. For example, the number of mental health compensation claims filed with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department since the beginning of 2024 is double the total filed in 2023, said Bernadine Welsh, the department’s director of risk management.

Long shifts are bad for your health, said Theron Bowman, president and CEO of the Bowman Group, an Arlington, Texas-based police and public policy consulting firm. He pointed out that the average life expectancy of a police officer is 58 years.

In addition to being overworked, officers are facing increasing community opposition following high-profile killings, including the deaths of Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, and George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, Veitch said.

The combination of working conditions and increasingly negative public perception is affecting the way officers do their jobs. Since 2014, officers have been less proactive in traffic stops for fear of being suspended or sued for their dealings with the public, Mr. Bowman said.

Law enforcement agencies are beginning to recognize that officers sometimes feel unsupported by their superiors after a complaint from the public and that there is a need to invest in officer well-being and support, he said.

The police shortage is forcing some departments to lower hiring standards, putting officers with less experience and training on the streets, experts say.

The labor shortage is a “macroeconomic problem that cannot be solved overnight” and ministries must develop solutions and workarounds, Bowman said.

Lowering hiring standards is not the solution to the problem, he said, pointing out that hiring a police officer with standard training would involve an investment of about $2 million.

One specific area in which officers need training is how to deal with individuals suffering from mental health issues, Bowman said.

The biggest trend in civil rights lawsuits against police officers involves people with mental health issues, says David MacMain, managing partner at the West Chester, Pennsylvania-based law firm MacMain Leinhauser PC, which defends lawsuits against police officers and municipalities.

Mental disorders often cause people to behave inappropriately, and officers generally do not know at the time of an incident whether a person has a mental illness, he said.

Mr Bowman said it would be useful for police departments to implement a training program that provides officers with ongoing education about their own mental health and how to deal with mentally ill people.

“Much of what we see is preventable,” he said.

Labour shortages and inflation put pressure on public institutions

The shortage of skilled construction workers and the resulting inflation are affecting the risks of public institutions, according to two experts.

Labor shortages are increasing the cost of repairing property damage caused by severe weather, said Lauren Tredinnick, president of public sector risk solutions at Munich Re Specialty Insurance, during a session at the Public Risk Management Association’s annual conference.

Ms Tredinnick said insurers were prepared for higher-than-average property losses due to Colorado State University’s recent forecast of an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season and an expansion of Tornado Alley.

While there is coverage capacity, the forecast of an excessively severe hurricane season has sparked interest among some insurers outside the U.S. in offering property damage coverage, she said.

Ms Tredinnick said the scope of Tornado Alley has shifted east and north in recent years and that the number and severity of tornadoes have increased dramatically.

The risk of catastrophic damage used to be limited to the coasts but has expanded, she noted. For example, claims for hail and severe thunderstorm damage have increased dramatically in recent years, and there are no good models to predict convective storms, she said.

The increasing number of catastrophic weather events worldwide is impacting reinsurance markets, which in turn is affecting insurers of local companies.

Therefore, it is important for public entities to ensure their property is accurately valued, said Wes Crago, program administrator at Clear Risk Solutions, a subsidiary of Brown & Brown Inc.

“You need to keep your property prices at market value. If you don’t have accurate property values, you’re going to have difficult conversations with your insurer if something happens,” he said.

A positive development for public institutions is the improvement of the cyber insurance market with the entry of additional insurers, Ms Tredinnick said.

Mr Crago said it was imperative for public institutions to protect themselves from cyberattacks by taking measures such as updating software and requiring multi-factor authentication. He also said public institutions should provide practical training on how to deal with cyberattacks.