Suicide rates among police officers in Los Angeles and San Diego are higher than their counterparts in other big cities cited in a report considered Tuesday by the Los angeles Police Commission.
The data was included in a study presented by Police Department psychologists who are in the process of retooling the agency's suicide prevention program.
The report said 19 Los Angeles police officers killed themselves between 1998 and 2007, while only seven died in the line of duty during that time.
Comparable statistics were not available for San Diego, but the study said the rates in both Southern California cities exceeded police suicides in Chicago and New York.
Kevin Jablonski, chief psychiatrist for the Los Angeles Police Department, pinned the high suicide rates on the mental anguish that comes from policing dangerous streets.
"When you interact day after day, hour after hour with either the victims of crime or the perpetrators of crime, you start thinking this world is dangerous, this world is violent," he said. "It's depressing."
Department psychologists said in their report that the suicide rate among Los Angeles officers had decreased more than 20 percent since 1998, when the department made a push to increase suicide prevention services.
Still, Jablonski said more needs to be done to make sure officers know treatment is available for conditions that lead to suicide, such as depression and alcoholism.
Staff are planning a revamped suicide prevention program that includes new training for supervisors to respond to potential problems, as well as wallet cards and dashboard stickers directing officers to sources of counseling, he said.
