Do law enforcement workers have higher rates of psychological problems

Factual Questions
1

Do people who work in law enforcement as judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, cops, investigators, prison guards, bounty hunters, probation workers, etc have higher rates of things like suicide, depression or substance abuse than average?

I’ve heard contradictory info for police officer suicide, some say it is higher than average, some lower.

2

As a conversation starter, here’s our own Dex’s mailbag report on the matter: What occupation has the highest suicide rate?

I must say I feel fine myself.

3

Here is a study claiming an overall lower suicide rate for New York police officers:

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~nock/nocklab/Marzuk_police%20suicide.pdf

http://www.med.cornell.edu/news/press/2002/12_19_02_b.html (summary of previous cite)

Here are a couple of critiques:

http://infoventures.com/osh/abs/lawe0002.html
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/161/4/767
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/161/4/766
And a contrary result:

http://www.suicidereferencelibrary.com/test4~id~605.php

Lawyers: http://www.lpac.ca/French/Courses/Course13-03.asp
http://www.abanet.org/barserv/22-6dev.html

4

And there’s this tangentially-related one by Cecil: Do dentists have the highest suicide rate?

5

Suicide by profession: lots of confusion, inconclusive data

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3004.htm (Police or public safety officers are at risk for suicide. The hours of work, the scenes they witness daily, the availability of guns, and the silence encouraged by the profession (keeping within the “wall-of-blue”), as well as alcohol usage and divorces contribute to this risk.)