Annual Mental Evaluations for Police Officers

The experience of violent, traumatic, and horrifying incidents is inevitable for law enforcement practitioners. The job of a police officer is one of the top rated. stressful professions. The trauma a police officer experiences throughout their career can lead to several negative outcomes if not dealt with properly. Police agencies, until recently, when considering wellness have mainly focused on physical fitness and creating annual testing for such. However, testing one’s physical fitness does not tell a complete story into a person’s overall health. A mental health checkup is a necessary component for an agency attempting to gauge an employee’s overall wellness. Research shows, departments that put an emphasis on an employee’s overall wellness have stress reduction, lower turnover rates, and higher community satisfaction. Police agencies should mandate annual mental health checkups in order to ensure mental factors are a component of wellness