Improved mental health services, daycare among needs police are seeking

“Police1,” a significant publication for police officers and executives, conducts an annual survey on What Cops Want. The 2024 results, unlike any previous year, revealed a seismic shift in focus from material desires to critical mental health issues. This unprecedented shift underscores the urgent need for change in the law enforcement community.

The survey highlights alarming levels of stress and mental health struggles among law enforcement officers. With more than 2,800 officers responding, which for a survey is good, the voices of law enforcement officers nationwide revealed a profession experiencing extreme stress and significant mental health challenges. The survey painted a stark picture of the state of law enforcement when it comes to a wide range of mental health and wellness issues, and police chiefs throughout the nation better listen up.

What are the officers who responded saying? The survey highlights several areas that need immediate attention. Those include a need for mental health resources, work/life balancing stress concerns, sleep and physical fitness worries and nutrition and on-duty eating concerns.

While more than 50% of respondents said there still is a stigma around mental health issues in law enforcement, they expressed dissatisfaction with the availability of mental health resources in their departments and some reported they have no mental health resources available to them.

Of the more than 60% of the respondents who expressed work/life balancing stress concerns, more than half reported difficulty balancing long hours with home life. The survey indicated that officers desire more flexible and improved scheduling, a change that is of utmost importance. They noted that job stress affects their personal relationships and family life.

Other respondents were concerned about lack of time to work on individual issues or personal commitments they may have in their family. More than 25% of respondents said they would call themselves out of service, meaning sick time, because of extreme exhaustion or distress.

Nutrition and on-duty eating habits also were discussed. Officers said they do not have enough time on their shifts to eat healthy meals, and this is a common occurrence. The heavy workload in many agencies and the assignment by supervisors of irregular mealtimes produce poor eating habits. Police often resort to snacking or eating unhealthy foods in their squad car.

As I said at the beginning of this column, this is extraordinary because these issues have not been addressed in law enforcement surveys in the past, or at least to this extent. This demonstrates a real need for mental health services in law enforcement.

Another area of concern I have been hearing personally from law enforcement officers is the practice of forced overtime is affecting officers so much that many of them are leaving the profession. And it is getting challenging to recruit.

All officers expect to be scheduled overtime throughout the year, which usually is not an issue. Then forced overtime happens. An officer works an eight-hour shift, but two hours before the end of the shift, the supervisor tells the officer they must work an additional four or eight hours to cover shifts, especially for sick callouts. The officer has no choice. Depending on seniority, they are forced to stay overtime. The younger you are, the more you will be forced to work overtime.

Now think about officers with families. Imagine that you have planned child care while you are at work, but two hours before the end of your shift, you are forced to work another four to eight hours and have to scramble to find additional child care.

Police leaders need to listen to this survey. They must offer officers mental health services and produce new innovative ideas to assist them in their off-duty lives. Many communities in California, most of them more prominent cities, are offering full-time day care centers for children of police officers as a way to increase recruiting. It has been extraordinarily successful.

While a tiny suburban agency could not manage this, agencies could band together to offer child care services for their officers.

Scheduling for police officers is a huge concern. There must be new innovative ways to plan. Most police agencies either have eight-hour, 10-hour or 12-hour shifts. Some agencies have started four-day work weeks, 10-hour days, four days a week. Some agencies in the Northwest have started four-day work weeks but are paying the officers for 80 hours.

There needs to be new thinking because we need to retain the new breed of officers that we are actively recruiting. The my-way-or-the-highway days are over, and they have been for a long time. When we start to meet officer needs, the community will benefit.

• Tom Weitzel was chief of the Riverside Police Department. Follow him @chiefweitzel.