Mental Wellness and Suicide Prevention for Law Enforcement

Wellness can be defined as “the state of being in good physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual health, especially as an actively pursued goal. Police literature related to wellness tends to focus on what needs to do be done within a broad mental or physical scope to minimize the threat of injury or death among law enforcement officers of all ranks. These dimensions are made up of five “domains” which are critical to surviving the cumulative effect of living the police life. Getting too far out of balance in these domains damages our overall wellness and can increase our risk for injury, on-duty death, and suicide.