The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) is calling for the silent crisis of police suicide to end as new data reveals the devastating scale of this crisis killing officers.
Data compiled by the Federation shows more than 100 police officers and staff have died by suicide between 2022 and 2025. At least 70 police officers have died during that time and there have been more than 200 attempted suicides.
The Federation has established a shocking link between suicide and the police misconduct regime, a damning indication of the lack of welfare support from forces to officers at the most vulnerable point in their career.
Forty-seven of the 70 suicides and 173 of 236 attempted suicides are attributable to officers involved in misconduct or criminal investigations against them. In 2025 the link was even stronger, with 12 of 13 police officer suicides that we know about involving officers under investigation.
Police forces are not required to record suicide or attempted suicide, meaning the Federation’s data is likely to significantly undercount the real figures. The lack of recording means that policing is not currently regarded by the Office for National Statistics as an “occupation at risk”.
The Federation has set out a six-point plan to end the crisis starting now:
• Chief Constables need to agree today to begin recording and reporting on suicide and attempted suicide in the workforce. We believe this needs to be a requirement set out in law and support Lord Bailey’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which would make recording and reporting mandatory.
• Police conduct regulations need to mandate a 12-month limit for disciplinary investigations into police officers, whether that is by the IOPC or police forces.
• Health and Safety legislation needs to treat police suicide as an incident at work and therefore reportable and investigated under ‘RIDDOR’ rules.
• All forces should implement the Federation’s STEP (Suicide Trauma Education Prevention) campaign, a new national initiative launched by Hampshire Police Federation and backed by PFEW. It aims to tackle the rising number of police officer suicides and exposing the often-unseen trauma officers face when repeatedly attending suicide incidents. It calls for mandatory TRiM (Trauma Risk Management) interventions for any officer attending a suicide and the downloading by forces of the Stay Alive app.
• The coronial system needs to reflect the unique aggravating or contributory factors of the role of police officers in suicide and ensure that the crisis is dealt with nationally rather than through a patchwork of “prevention of future deaths” reports after individual inquests.
• The Police Covenant needs to be funded to better support the welfare and wellbeing of police officers in the same way that the Armed Forces Covenant and Covenant Trust does.
Police Federation National Chair Tiff Lynch said: “This silent crisis has to end. Policing is a unique job carrying unique risks and officers know that the work they do will scar them mentally and physically. What they shouldn’t have to deal with is inadequate welfare support and a box-ticking approach to the duty of care forces have in their people.
“The link between suicide and officers under investigation is a shocking indictment of the lack of compassion and support in the misconduct regime. It reflects the misguided rhetoric of police leaders which has tipped too far into ‘who can sound the toughest’.
"Those processes must hold officers to the highest of standards but they should not be killing officers. The most tragic part of that is that no one seems to care that it is.”
For more information about the Stay Alive app, visit stayalive.prevent-suicide.org.uk.
