Article Suicide Among New York City Police Officers, 1977–1996

Objective: The authors assessed the sui-cide rates of New York City police officers during a recent period. Method: The authors reviewed death certificates of active New York City police officers who died from 1977 through 1996 (N=668); age-, gender-, and race-specific suicide rates among New York City police officers and the city’s residents were determined. Results: The police suicide rate was 14.9 per 100,000 person-years, com-pared with a demographically adjusted suicide rate of New York City residents of 18.3 per 100,000 person-years. Sui-cide rates among male police officers were comparable to their reference population. Female police officers had a higher risk of suicide than female resi-dents of New York, but the number of suicides of female police officers was small. Conclusions: The rate of suicide among New York City police officers is equal to, or even lower than, the suicide rate of the city’s resident population. (Am J Psychiatry 2002; 159:2069–2071) For the 738,000 law enforcement officers in the United States, suicide has been considered an occupational haz-ard, resulting from job stress, high rates of alcoholism and marital discord, and the availability of firearms (1–5). Al-though police officers are thought to have a very high sui-cide rate, few studies have systematically assessed this rate. Therefore, we sought to determine if the suicide rate of New York City police officers exceeded that of the gen-eral population or showed changes over a recent period