NASHVILLE, Tennessee — How police officers handle their own mental health and how they interact with individuals suffering from mental illness are the biggest concerns and risks for law enforcement departments, experts say.
Working conditions are becoming increasingly stressful for police officers as many departments are understaffed, they say.
And with shorter overall training periods, police officers need specific training on how to recognize when they are dealing with a person with mental health issues and how they should respond, they said during presentations at the Public Risk Management Association’s annual conference last month.
The shortage of police staff has led to an increase in overtime, which has sometimes led to officers calling in sick to avoid being assigned overtime after a shift ends, said Saratoga Springs, New York-based Greg Veitch, a retired police chief and founder of the risk management consulting firm Noble Cause Training and Development.
“It is not a sustainable way to do policing,” he said.
Longer shifts and more stressful working conditions are also driving up workers compensation claims. For example, the number of mental health workers comp claims for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department filed since the beginning of 2024 are double the total amount filed in 2023, said Bernadine Welsh, the department’s director of risk management.
Long shifts are detrimental to health, said Theron Bowman, president and CEO of Bowman Group, an Arlington, Texas-based police and public practices consultancy, who noted that the average life expectancy for a police officer is 58 years old.
In addition to being overworked, officers are facing increased resistance from communities following high-profile killings, including the death of Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, and George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, Mr. Veitch said.
The combination of the working conditions and the increasingly negative public perception are affecting how officers do their jobs. Since 2014, officers have become less proactive in making traffic stops for fear of being suspended or sued over their interaction with the public, Mr. Bowman said.
Law enforcement agencies are starting to recognize that officers sometimes don’t feel supported by supervisors after a complaint is received from the public and that investment is needed in officer wellness and support, he said.
The police labor shortage is forcing some departments to reduce hiring standards, putting officers on the street with less experience and training, the experts said.
The labor shortage is a “macroeconomic problem that won’t be solved overnight,” and departments need to develop solutions and workarounds, Mr. Bowman said.
Lowering hiring standards is not the answer to the problem, he said, noting that hiring a law enforcement officer is a roughly $2 million investment with all of the usual training.
A specific area in which officers need training is dealing with individuals who suffer from mental health issues, Mr. Bowman said.
The biggest trend in civil rights cases brought against police officers involves individuals with mental health issues, said West Chester, Pennsylvania-based David MacMain, managing partner at law firm MacMain Leinhauser P.C., which defends claims against law enforcement officers and municipalities.
Mental health disorders often trigger individuals to behave inappropriately, and officers don’t typically know if a person is suffering from a mental illness at the time of an incident, he said.
Mr. Bowman said having police departments implement a training program that continually trains officers on their own mental health as well as how to deal with individuals suffering from mental illnesses would be beneficial.
“A lot of what we see is preventable,” he said.
<BR><HR>
<p><img src=”https://www.businessinsurance.com/assets/pdf/BI_0724-09.jpg” width=”480″ align=”left”></p>
<p> </p>
Labor market shortages, inflation pressure public entities
The shortage of qualified construction workers and the resulting inflation are affecting public entities’ risks, according to a pair of experts.
The labor shortages are increasing the costs of repairing property damage caused by severe weather events, Lauren Tredinnick, president of public entity risk solutions at Munich Re Specialty Insurance, said during a session at the Public Risk Management Association’s annual conference.
Ms. Tredinnick said Colorado State University’s recent forecast of an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season and the widening of the “Tornado Alley” have insurers bracing for above-normal amounts of property damage.
While there is capacity for coverage, she said the forecast of an overly active hurricane season has sparked interest from some insurers outside the United States to offer coverage for property damage.
Ms. Tredinnick said the footprint of Tornado Alley has changed in recent years by shifting east and north and that the number and severity of tornadoes have increased dramatically.
The risk of catastrophic losses used to be limited to the coasts but has spread, she noted. For example, claims for damage caused by hail and severe thunderstorms have increased dramatically over the past few years, and there aren’t good models to predict convective storms, she said.
The increase in the number of catastrophic weather events occurring across the globe is affecting reinsurance markets, which in turn affects insurers for local entities.
As a result, it is important for public entities to ensure that their properties are accurately appraised, said Wes Crago, a program administrator for Clear Risk Solutions, a unit of Brown & Brown Inc.
“You have to keep your property rates at market value. If you don’t have accurate property values, you’re going to have a difficult conversation with your insurer if something happens,” he said.
In a positive development for public entities, the market for cyber coverage has improved with the entry of additional insurers, Ms. Tredinnick said.
Mr. Crago said it is imperative for public entities to guard against cyberattacks by taking steps such as ensuring software is up to date and requiring multifactor authentication. He also said public entities should offer experiential training on handling a cyberattack.
