Record High Number Of Police Officers Suffering PTSD, But Why Does The Public Seem To Forget They Are Human?

We are frequently reminded on the internet to tick boxes that show ‘we are not robots’. Yet we fail to acknowledge this with police officers and expect them to deal with horrendous traumatic incidents without it leaving any impact on them.

We all know they are one of the most abused professions on our street today and yet ironically one of the most needed. For those who at this point are making remarks along the opposite, imagine you are caught in a terrorist attack, would you then turn an officer away? Or faced with a gunman or even with the highest probability-an individual with a knife, are you going to turn down help? Unless you are Jet Li, chances are most of us would be very grateful for the arrival of our police officers.

It is estimated that we will experience three to four traumatic incidents in our life times, compared to hundreds experienced by officers throughout their career. Yet why do most of us fail to acknowledge this?

Post traumatic stress disorder amongst police officers is at record high levels. It was estimated that 1 in 5 suffers with either PTSD or CPTSD. More than 14,500 officers were signed off work between 2023/24 due to either stress, depression or PTSD. Shocked yet?

British Transport Police officers were critcised by a retired senior officer who found that fact that they are willing to have their picture taken with tourists, unacceptable. Why? These are officers who deal with horrendous incidents daily. They lose count of how many tragic incidents they have had to deal with of people sadly taking their own lives. For us as journalists, it is sad to go and cover a story whereby such a tragic incident has taken place, knowing that a person has chosen to end their life in such a truly heartbreaking way. Imagine you are the officers having to witness and deal with such incidents daily? Having to inform family members of what has happened. Incidents that leave endless scars. Yet having a quick photo is clearly too much for some who either do not know the reality of policing today or have spent way too much time behind a desk.

We forget when we see officers on the street and throw out usual remarks like, ‘never see you on the street’ or even better ‘got lost have you’, that these officers may well have dealt with an incident where a woman has been horrendously attacked or a child and have had to witness situations most of us will never witness.

For those on social media whose sole purpose in life is to criticse police officers, and relish the thought of getting up out of bed to hurl more abuse behind your keyboard, fortunately you have never witnessed what they do each week and chances are you would not be able to deal with the horrendous situations these officers are called to.

We once spoke to officer who had dealt with a horrendous incident where a young mother had been brutally struck by a vehicle with facts too shocking to share and asked them how they dealt with it after witnessing what they did. They replied- they don’t deal with it and it says with them……..

Yes they wear a uniform, yes they have chosen to do that job, but they are also human beings behind it that do one of the bravest jobs on our streets today.

Stay up to date with all of our latest updates and content by following us on our social media accounts!

We have created community pages where we will share our up-to-date stories happening in the area. Add the area closest to where you live.