NCJ Number
193553
Date Published
2001
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article presents the "suicide funnel" as a training aid for police officers to help them identify the emotional states, perceptions, and behaviors that mark the progressive psychological descent into serious suicidal ideation and the resolve to commit suicide.
Abstract
The "suicide funnel" is designed as a training aid that can foster a candid discussion of the potential indicators of an officer's suicidal thoughts and behaviors, as well as appropriate interventions. The steps of the suicide funnel are depression and occasional thoughts of suicide; recent and persistent thoughts of suicide accompanied by feeling hopeless and helpless; deciding on a plan to commit suicide that brings a sense of relief; taking steps to implement the suicide plan; attempting suicide; and if the initial suicide attempt fails, making another effort. The suicide funnel indicates the common experience of occasional thoughts of suicide, but warns against failing to take appropriate intervention when it is clear that an individual officer is beginning to slip deeper into the funnel. Discussing the suicide funnel openly in police training provides officers with the knowledge not only to recognize the suicide funnel in their own experience but also in the lives of their coworkers, such that they can provide the help needed in a timely fashion. This article provides samples of both the short form and long form of the suicide funnel depiction, with the short form intended for overhead projection in a training session and the long from intended for a handout to trainees. Attached summary of suicide interventions