Government Must Acknowledge Police Suicide Rise

The Government must do more to tackle the rising number of suicides among officers and police staff, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Across the country, in the first nine months of 2026, at least 15 police officers and staff members have taken their own lives – this is already more than in the whole of 2025.

To mark World Suicide Prevention Day, Hampshire and Sussex Police Federations delivered a letter to the Policing Minister, calling on the Government to make a raft of changes, including properly recording suicide numbers, providing more funding for mental health support, and pushing police chiefs to roll out a suicide prevention app.

Speaking outside the Home Office, Hampshire Police Federation Chair Spencer Wragg, founder of the STEP (Suicide Trauma Education Prevention) campaign, said: “Last year there were 13 officers who we know took their own lives. This year, we’re only in September and that number has been surpassed. This issue isn’t going away.

“This issue is really important, and we need to understand it better. Recording it is only one side of it. Suicide is sometimes really difficult to talk about, it comes with real stigma, and people feel concerned about putting themselves forward and actually asking for help.”

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent agreed that the Government must acknowledge that “policing is on the edge of a mental health precipice”. He continued: “Since I have been in the Federation, five officers in our force have taken their own lives. Some forces have suffered even more tragedy. It shows an absolutely terrifying trend.”

Steve said that if the Government and policing leaders truly acknowledged the scale of the crisis and the unique pressures that policing is under, it would mean having to look at changing pay and conditions, discipline processes and police funding.

He said: “So while there’s warm words and platitudes when paying tribute to officers who have taken their own lives, there seems to be no attitude for collective change, and I don’t know what’s going to shift this, because one suicide is too many. Is it going to take those numbers doubling? Tripling? Will they act then? Probably not.

“We need our policing leaders to say: ‘We need to wake up’, and there needs to be a radical reform of police officers’ terms and conditions, and also the way that officers are treated in the misconduct arena – because, as it stands, officers are waiting for months and years for these processes to conclude. The threat of prison for making a genuine mistake is like no other, and yet it’s a pressure that officers are expected to absorb for some of the worst policing pay in the Western world; that’s just not acceptable.”

Officers who are struggling should know that they are not alone, and that they can seek help.
Mental Health Crisis Line: 0300 131 2789
The Thin Blue Line: www.thinbluelineuk.org.uk
Samaritans: 116 123