You are listening to policy currents a weekly podcast from the Brand Corporation I’m Evan Banks it’s September 29th this week we’re bringing you a special conversation with Rand researchers Heather Williams and Dick Donahue before we get into the episode a brief content warning for our listeners this discussion you’re about to hear focuses on the mental health effects of exposure to trauma and it includes explicit references to violent and
Traumatic events I’m here in the studio today with Heather Williams associate director of the Rand International Security and defense policy program and Dick Donahue director of the Rand Center for Quality policing Heather recently co-authored a paper examining trauma in the intelligence community and she is a Former Intelligence officer
Herself Dick’s research focuses on law enforcement issues including police community relations and officer training Recruitment and Retention before joining Rand dick was a decorated law enforcement officer he’s a retired sergeant of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority police welcome both of you thank you you’ve both written about the effects of trauma
And secondary trauma and we’ll get into the difference between those later in both the elligence community and in the law enforcement community and we’re here today not just to talk about that but also um to talk about your own personal experiences with both of those I think let’s just start with those personal
Experiences you both have really um very interesting backgrounds from before you came to around uh can you tell me a little bit about what those were so I was in the intelligence Community for 13 years before I joined Rand that was seven years ago um and I worked on primarily Iran and um
Terrorism counterterrorism uh I did three tours overseas working directly with special forces in trying to identify high value targets and to um apprehend or or kill them um and so so those were a lot of uh my experiences that I sort of brought to this work but
Uh since I’ve been at Rand I continue to work on issues of terrorism or mass violence um so sort of my potential exposure as an analy and a researcher um two issues of potential trauma didn’t necessarily end when I when I joined Rand and uh prior to coming to Rand I
Was a law enforcement officer I was a police officer with the mpta Transit Police Department in Massachusetts um I served there for a number of years before a uh life-changing experience that happened over the course of about 4 days um where there was um they say good
Things coming threes and bad things to as well uh first one being the Boston Marathon bombing itself so I was a patrol officer working a few miles from the marathon Finish Line um and you know going into work uh thinking it was going to be just a a regular day um that was
Kind of the first life-changing experience um 3 days later my uh my friend and uh police academy colleague was uh was murdered in the line of duty and 2 hours later um I was in the gunfight with the sarv brothers um and I was uh critically injured I was uh
Nearly dead for um the better part of an hour and uh you know for the um you know maybe save some divine intervention I’m I’m still here today and um you know had since you medically retired from the police department and um and and come to
Rand a few years later I mean one thing I’ve been curious for you dick is um your trauma was experienced in such a public way I mean you know here is this very personal experience and everybody knows about it how does that affect how you
Try to manage it that just means I I don’t have privacy anymore you know when you’re when your entire life and pictures of well my then one kid um are all over you know national news while I’m still in a coma and you wake up and you’re like whoa hey things have changed
A little bit and I can’t move my leg um and then you know you have people visiting you you know from my Senator and the governor and the the head of the transportation agency and every officer in the department and and I’m sitting in a hospital bed in a Johnny you
Know it really is a lesson in in humility um like really probably down you know to the lowest level right I had people stripping me off in the street and giving me CPR and giving me mouth to mouth um and uh you know being even
Running into people my my one of my kids hockey coaches um who I didn’t even know this whole thing happened he goes oh my God you I didn’t even put this together you’re dick on to you like I am an X-ray tech at at the hospital you get brought
Into I remember you get brought in like we we worked on you and he just turned pills like pill is a ghost and um it it it is it is uh it is strange but I I don’t think um that might be just such an oddity in
It in itself that it was that it was extremely public um I just you know don’t wish any of my entire experience to to anyone else and you know you just have to have to deal with it any any way you can other than just uh yeah try to
Try to try to figure it out and do whatever you have to do and lean on the people you have to to uh to get through the next you know minute hour day month and year yeah um both of these communities the intelligence community and the law enforcement Community um
Deal with some very unpleasant things and it’s a necessary part of the job and uh the people in those communities do that so they can keep other people safe and so that other people don’t have to deal with and see some of the things that the people in these communities
Have to deal with and see on a day-to-day basis as part of their jobs um but seeing and dealing with these things is not without consequence itself correct um this is what you call secondary trauma can you tell me more about about what that is yes so I think
In our communities I know I’m speaking for the intelligence Community dick can speak for the law enforcement Community um even some of the terminology about how trauma isn’t really directly understood and appreciated um so a lot of people and not necessarily Professionals in the space but people understand direct trauma right you you
Were directly involved in a traumatic event dick obviously experienced more than his fair share of direct trauma um but indirect trauma or secondary trauma um is perhaps underappreciated and so this is something that a lot of members of the intelligence Community get exposed to um let’s say you’re working really on any
Kind of issues that are going to involve violence um which a lot of us do um you might be working on counterterrorism you might be working on counternarcotics you might be working um on a an oppressive regime that systematically uses violence against it against its population um you might be
Looking at um currently you know the war in in Ukraine and so you’re are reading material and increasingly listening to or watching um material about those about the conflicts or about violent events um and so you aren’t there directly you aren’t experiencing direct trauma but there’s a cumulative effect
Of being um you know an indirect kind of witness of these events um and just because you are resilient to it today does not mean that you’re resilient to it tomorrow so there’s a there’s a cumulative of effect of seeing that kind of content over and over and over again
That can wear down the emotional resilience of a person to give our listeners an idea of the kind of content that we’re talking about I don’t want to be too graphic but you wrote an oped in Politico and the title of that uped is don’t tell your nonwork friends about the
Decapitations um for our listeners like this is the this is the kind of content you see uh through um intelligence Gathering and it’s just um it’s brutal it’s very brutal um when Heather talked about you know don’t talk about decapitations with your nonwork friends
Well I happen to be at lunch uh in June right right down the street here in um in Virginia with some with some DC cops and I’m out of the loop now seven years retired um basically 10 years since I’ve really actively worked on a police department and you know go have lunch
With a couple guys and we actually drinking Coca-Cola for a change I was kind of I was kind of like shocked um and it’s it’s me so retired retired cop um my buddy who’s a homicide cop and the other guy is a Cold Case detective and
The other guy at the table works for the sexual assault unit so I mean we or they talk shop for the better part I mean we were there for two hours talking shop and uh I I think some of it might have been okay getting my other Bud who will remain nameless
You might listen in uh getting him back in the loop as he’s ready to get back in um but I think some of it too um you know I I guess it was good we weren’t at you know quote unquote choir practice and we were you know having soda and and
Hamburgers but it was kind of getting some of the um you know the emotions out or the emotional trauma and stress out and and being able to discuss it and even some of it that was you know you hear yes I didn’t believe this person because they’re you know they’ve been a
You know a a drug user an abuser for a long time and they actually got kidnapped and sexually assaulted and then I had to take the statements and then we went back on camera then we found this person getting kidnapped and then we we we hear these
Stories over and over again and it’s not like you know hey and then uh and then you know I wrote the report uh you know went home and and called my my psychiatrist because that probably didn’t didn’t happen or or I went home and I I got on my did my breathing
Exercises and did X Y and Z it was you know then I was ordered into a shift I had to put a uniform on and I had to cover another shift or I had to go back to work the next day the next day the
Next day the next day and hear the same sort of thing uh over and over and over again um but it was maybe an environment where where we could uh talk about you know some of the worst things and I I think part of it for me too is even on a
Day-to-day basis you know some of my best friends are still um you know on the force and you know my my my brother’s a cop so I still get I still get a little taste of it and I still kind of hear some of it but
Um but yeah naturally if you if you bring some of those those are some of the stories you don’t tell at the dinner table with like Mom and Dad or or the kids and that sort of thing I think this how a lot of people in these communities in the law
Enforcement community and the intelligence Community process the stress is with their work colleagues you know with their friends um that’s who you talk to about it because um they’re a group that understands your experience and then sometimes they’re a group you’re legally allowed to talk to you’re in the intelligence community and and
Law enforcement too you’re just you’re not allowed to discuss a lot of these things with somebody else and so um I think a lot of people process and decompress from stress by using their personal networks use your family use your friends um use your spouse those recourses are not always available to
People in our community um and so there you know you do have your work colleagues and that’s useful um to great extent that said you know as we as I’ve said this community doesn’t actually understand necessarily trauma um and uh they’re also experiencing trauma too so
Um you know the person you’re trying to lean on is also potentially suffering um so there’s just there’s not a lot of of resources um available and there still is as much as it’s it’s okay to talk about certain things over Cokes or beers or whatever it might be um but there
Still are boundaries and limitations and stigma inside of these communities I’d be curious to hear from dick about what some of them are for law enforcement I know for the intelligence Community um you would never I think there’s a real stigma against revealing um That You’re vulnerable that you’re
Suffering um that it’s affecting your judgment in any way um is there like a belief that that could affect your security clearance or absolutely so you know the the security clearance process is always asked about mental health uh historically with very vague and open-ended questions um H they’ve gotten
More specific about what those questions are but there’s still a lot of I think anxiety about revealing that you might um have concerns about your own mental Wellness um which is is is actually ironically just creating more risk for the community because there could be opportunities for someone
To acknowledge that they have a problem and seek treatment and there’s no National Security risk but instead there there’s such anxiety about it that that they will just try to maybe sort of do self-care um or sometimes self harm in search of self-care like drinking or other detrimental negative behaviors um
And and that just creates greater risk in the long run and it’s not like there’s a network of like classified psychologists and therapists available to help because even if they were a lot of the way the intelligence Community works is on a need to know basis and so
If you don’t need access to particular information then you don’t have access to it and so even if someone else was cleared you may not be able to to talk about some of the things that you’ve seen yeah I mean that there technically are you know councilors and and therapists inside the intelligence
Community they they exist that resource exists um they are concerns about what even I could share with them so you’re absolutely right just because you have a clearance doesn’t mean I’m allowed to tell you everything at any time and anywhere any circumstance um you know but there are employee uh assistance
Services in all of the agencies um but there are different cultural differences um in the agencies and there’s just a lot of uncertainty for the individual and and um the individual who might be um managing uh uh you know sort of their own stress um their own potential traumatic exposure and the individuals
Around them like I don’t want to necessarily say anything about my colleague even if I’m concerned about them that could compromise their ability to keep their job um so just that I think does not it’s it’s not a community um uh that’s going to be that outspoken
About these things and there’s not a culture of mental Wellness within the community dick how’s how was that your experience too with law enforcement so uh similar and instead of clearance it’s G and badge it’s it’s if you talk to somebody if you seek help if you’re
Perceived as needing that to the you know to the uh extent that someone’s going to get the help for you that your gun and badge are are going to be taken away from you um I remember literally being in the hospital with tubes sticking to me people say don’t say
Don’t talk to anybody about what happened they’re going to Take Your Gun they’re going to take your badge they’re going to take your job um didn’t didn’t happen but that that is a longstanding um you know generational you know generation after Generation Um you know law enforcement
Cultural belief it’s that if if you seek treatment um they’re going to take away your gun they’re going to take away your badge and that means you can’t work it means you can’t work your regular job you can’t work overtime um and and you’re out um so there’s there’s a um a
Fear that and and obviously I said it didn’t happen to me you know um my department came and and gave me my badge which is nice even though um you know for for you know two months I was in hospitals um I wasn’t going to go arresting anybody um they didn’t give me
A gun right away but I think um you know for for good measure again um you know sleeping in hospital rooms for for for for two months uh didn’t didn’t really need one um so even in in my case being through the situation being you know very physically injured as well um that
It just simply didn’t happen and then when I was you know recovered you know quote unquote enough I did end up retiring you know went back to the range qualified my duty weapon we we changed weapons they give me a new one and and it there was there were there were no
Issues um so even kind of dispelling some of those rumors but certainly having heard them from other officers beforehand um and even officers during those first few days when I’m just barely getting better and just you know barely surviving a uh a gunfight I’m hearing hey be careful what you say
Be careful what you do because they’re going to take your job there’s such a culture of being stoic and being um it just being part of the job and it is part of the job but um you know I find it interesting dick that you say this because I do wonder if
For cop it’s like that gun in the badge is even more a part of their identity like you know it it people in the intelligence Community are very anxious about their security clearance nobody wants to lose your security clearance we all recognize that that’s a critical
Thing for you to work but um I don’t know I mean you’re still you’re still who you are it would be it would be a problematic for your employment but I feel like to be a cop yeah and even in retirement it’s it’s important I mean I remember being
Anxious like I’m out processing where’s my retire badge right where’s my retire badge I have one I still have one I still have you know all my retire gear and and in ID just to have that that that tie back right to to being in that
Even with all that I I miss or like or dislike uh or or packed away that I still do have that um that that one thing um interestingly enough when I when I was thinking about you know talking about this subject I think about um one of the things that was given to
Me on day one of the police academy and given to everyone in our Academy was a book called emotional emotional survival for law enforcement It Was Written I don’t know probably 30 maybe 30 plus years ago and it went over everything from Stress Management to things like I’m sure you’ve experienced hyper
Vigilance right for everything like hey when you go to restaurant make sure you sit with your you know facing facing the door right don’t wear a seat belt because if you need to jump out you don’t want to get caught that one time right um it they didn’t say to not wear
The seat belt in the book but just some of these actions that that you think about some of these hey when I’m on the job for a year all of my friends are going to be on the job I’m not I’m not even going to have a tie back to my life
Beforehand right I’m going to eat sleep and drink this culture up um and some was trying to be like you know you got to distance yourself from it you have to have um some of these other mechanisms either organizationally or or personally you need to have the Hobbies even when you’re
Working 80 hours plus a week plus commuting plus sleeping in your car um that sort of thing um and it was just like I I feel like that book kind of still Rings true every once in a while I still have it up on on my bookshelf I’ll
Take a peek at it every once in a while but I think about it even even when I’m at um you know working on some of these these these Wellness issues um here at Rand um or when I was at a site visit for something completely unrelated and
I’m working with federal law enforcement officers and we’re getting up at 3:30 in the morning to go and do work and I and I I just asked him I said how many days a week do you get up at 3:30 in the morning to to do your job and then get
Home at you know 5: in the afternoon I was like well I do this you know five days a week I was like well how do you how do you cope with that because this is terrible I’d rather work overnights and wake up at 3:30 in the morning you
Like how do how does your how does your family deal with this too right you have you have kids or a wife or a significant other how do they deal with that too and what’s that I don’t know if that’s secondary trauma or just the secondary
Impacts of of a certain type of of of employment and I know like you’ve been you’ve been you know deployed as well right it’s not um you know not an easy thing to have to uh have to deal with all that and then think about the you
Know secondary effects on on other folks it’s interesting to say that because one of the things I thought was really interesting about this work that we did on trauma in the intelligence Community is that um as important as the potential trauma exposure is the environment that
One is in when these things happen so you know as important as to whether or not someone can deal with traumatic stress is whether they’re working long hours or whether they’re working nights um or whether they’re working for a supportive manager versus you know a terriable manager um all of those
Dynamics really affect someone’s resilience to stress and and the intelligence Community like law enforcement is can be really high stakes and a really really intense environment so I think that rings so true at the same time one thing I think is an interesting difference between our communities is this maybe concept of
Boundaries I think yeah cops don’t ever really get to turn off you’re sort of always a cop um and you you live that identity day in and day out whereas if you’re an intelligence officer boundaries are actually very present and very important for your life you know my
Work stayed at work it did not go home with me me so yeah I worked long hours but when I walked out the door I had to have hobbies or or but there were kind of like negative consequences to both sides of that coin where like you felt
It was hard I mean and you couldn’t talk about some of the things with other people and dick you it’s hard to turn off and have a life outside of of the the work uh it’s interesting how both sides of that coin can contribute to this environment that’s right yeah but I
Think they do make it a little bit different like how presents itself and I I think that is really important for our field um we understand a lot about secondary trauma and there are some Universal truths about it um that you know practitioners who understand it can
Bring it to different fields but there are these unique aspects to these feels that we need to understand a little bit better so um this work that we did at Rand I think is some of the only work that’s ever been done on um secondary trauma in the intelligence community and
It has resonated did so powerfully we hear so much from I hear so much from people about how much it affected them how much they related to it and it’s hopefully started an important conversation but one that needs specific study like someone needs to specifically think about what this means for this
Field I think there’s been a little bit more about that done in law enforcement and First Responders generally there’s a better understanding of the fact that there are are risks here um it doesn’t mean that there isn’t still more to be done there’s a lot to be done on the
Research end and and I I was thinking there was a report that came out from the Department of Justice and you know the appendix b or whatever was was here are 30 different bullet points of of possible you know well health and wellness solutions from from
Everything uh you know from from eaps to um you know using using mobile apps to I mean anything you could think of to to critical incident trusty briefings which um there’s there’s research already on on some of that um you know saying they’re ineffective but um agencies keep
Keep using them um I guess I could go off on on a tangent there but I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll save my breath for for another day but um I I thought it was really interesting that they said here are here’s a laundry list of of potentially helpful
Things but they all need research and evaluation every single one of them do so um whether or not that will happen in one Fell Swoop I’m I’m not really um optimistic about that but but but I am at least optimistic that that look um we’re considering all these things
Across the spectrum of law enforcement it wasn’t just doj for just feds it was for the you know this the department of one uh you know to NYPD or or the border patrol every this this counts for everybody and I guess that just points to the newness of the field and the
Newness of the research that this is something that that people are realizing applies to to a lot of different communities yeah or the resistance of that Community to I mean these aren’t necessarily that new right so some comments like um some Concepts like moral injury are still a little bit
Newer understanding um that that moral injury and the sort of these risks that might exist to harm an individual emotionally mentally by sort of violating their core eth um or putting them in these situations where they’re kind of feeling that the activity is immoral so that that’s a
Relatively New Concept but um I think there’s these are um both communities that have been frankly more masculine communities um they are communities that have historically had a specific sort of demographic type um and and it it’s just a not not communities that are necessarily um oriented towards their
Feelings these are tough tough communities um and so I think it’s taken some time for there to be an appreciation and a bit more understanding brought to the work culture yeah you wrote in the paper that there is a small community where these um traumatic experience have been like
Taken into account a little bit more um a little bit more istically and that’s the the Drone operators Community could you talk a little bit about that yeah one of the only places that research has been done is um drone operators and um that’s been done often in the Air Force
And drone operators and so there is an appreciation I think of that that sort of uh function that job function and how that can be difficult um you know drone operators uh for those that could of are unaware drone operators are often here in the United States you know they
Aren’t even deployed forward alongside um troops and um they’re they’re seeing these feeds from platform unmanned platforms like Predators um of what’s going on in the battlefield and sometimes they’re even making decisions um like they’re determining yes that is the enemy Target you can fire the
Missile um on that drone um and so they’re they’re kind of one foot in the war but they’re physically out of the war and so those were very difficult jobs um for a lot of the service members who were doing them you know they would be essentially they’re virtually in Iraq
And Afghanistan during the conflict and then go home to their families you know um at least as um dick was mentioning my deployments um deployments are are very surreal you can’t really talk about it but you’re in it it’s a very different environment I remember coming home from
My deployments and being confused that anything had happened in the three or four months that I was gone oh someone got married or engaged or something because for me time Stood Still when I got on that plane to go to ackq and and the real world restarted when I got home
And so that did I think allow me to have some sort of emotional buffer um you know may me I wasn’t processing what I was experiencing there um but you didn’t have but you could be this isn’t the real world close to yeah that’s right
That’s right but you know a lot of drone operators haven’t had that luxury um so so there is some research that’s been done in that in that space but not really for the intelligence Community broadly what would you both wish you had um so sort of like what what would you
Have wanted to have um to feel supported yeah I think that’s a great question because I do think there are well-meaning intentions that I’ve tried to give the community that and um this is an an example where execution is important so um my third tour um overseas when I came back from
My deployment I was required to sit down with a psychiatrist and that hadn’t happened previously that was clearly kind of a new requirement as they realized that maybe this is something we should be doing um but it was useless it was a waste of time right I’m I’m going to sit
Down I was feel like I hadn’t even out processed yet and I sat down with a person I’ve never met before um you know for 10 minutes and they ask me you know how’s everything you know yeah I’m fine I don’t know you I’m not going to reveal
My deepest darkest secrets to you essentially stranger there’s no actual truster Rapport that’s been built with this person and so it was just really pro forma um so but I still believe well intentioned just badly executed um so I think what I would have wanted was um to
Know to know what was okay like to understand this is a person that you can talk to here’s the parameters of the convers just like you might know like you have a rough sense of what your priest or what your lawyer is going to do with information right almost like a
Privacy Bill of Rights yeah it’s not a it’s not a gotcha kind of scenario um it is a a serious debrief but sort of like you want to be walked through like what what that person’s going to do with that information what’s going to happen I
Sort of um saw the same thing I worked on a documentary several years ago on traumatic brain injury in the military and it wasn’t associated with brand but um it was about um uh service members who sustain like tbis and comeb back and that’s kind of like another lasting direct trauma that
They have and and it’s hard for them to talk about because the TBI lead to to things like ptst and things like that they don’t know who they can talk to about it they don’t know what happens if they do talk to someone um dick H hits
Home a little bit right with memory and physical and uh other defects that are they’re longstanding yeah this was a good it was a good project um the Marines in the Navy at the time were trying a couple of new things um using like holistic uh centers of excellence
That focused on things like um Yoga practices and acupuncture and just like things that the military hadn’t previously tried to do before um and they were having some success with it which was interesting yeah so interesting you said like you know what what what could help you and I was like
Well you know you just mentioned some of these these kind of new aged kind of things yeah just it seems like hippie dippy kind of stuff exactly for lack of better term yeah that you know if you talk to dick donu in like in in in in 12 you know
What what what do we have in terms of things right I mean I went home like the day before Christmas I think the day before Christmas Eve so the 23rd and and I I got ordered into a shift and I was like great I want to go home and see my
My kid who was young and and and my wife and get ready for Christmas and ah somebody got their throats slit at a train station and I had to you know shove my hand in somebody’s throat and this other guy’s getting arrested and then I had to just you hey got to write
A report and go home um and then you know hey it’s Christmas fantastic let’s like wrap the gifts and stuff um and and and thinking back to what was there I just there was stuff I I just don’t know what was there right all all I knew is that mean like
Resources I mean anything I I don’t know whatever is offered all all my I guess um other than kind of working the you know 16 hour days four days a week um was you know thankfully we had a a department gym where I would hit the gym
Or go for a run before work I’d run you know 13 miles before work and then go work you know 12 or 16 hours and then really be tired at the end of the day during which time you’re on your feet and hour so you know just with the with
The physical pounding of stuff too and wearing the gun belt and all that you know I could complain but we’re not here to do that but it was I think that that was my outlet was was was doing that which was also difficult when you get basically put in the hospital for months
And then I can’t run to this day so it’s like hey that that’s that’s taken away and I think only by being in a a really traumatic event um and being so like nearly dead like very critically injured uh was when you learn about things you learn about like what your leadership is
Going to do if you’re in a situation like this right who’s going to take care of your family who’s going to watch your kid um who’s going to get somebody from the airport that’s coming in here uh who’s going going to make sure you get the best medical care um who’s going to
Offer you I don’t even know what raiki is to this day but I I did it I I don’t know what it is or like acupuncture we did those things I have like needles in my ears what is this will this help me with my pain I’ll I’ll try whatever
Right um and it was learning about uh all these different things like Department chaplain or like local chaplain or or who whomever um you know I think by way of being involved in a major incident that was covered in you know international news kind of sped these things uh along um because
You don’t know until you until you need to know um if if you need these things and it really R from everything from like hey what do I do how do I file for disability insurance who’s going to make sure I get get paid when I’m out um
Because I had planned for all these things right so it it was it was really learning on the fly from not just like the the mental but the physical but all these other things you know Downstream to paying the bills to child care to you know being I guess
You know physically normal and able to do policing to not being able to do that and you know living with the disability living with you know short and longterm and long lasting effects of a disability um and and real you know life changes with that um you know some of those
Things I don’t think you’re going to um one would one would normally or rationally want to be planning or or thinking about or talking about but I think that’s also part of you know coming up with these um protective factors so if if and when or if
When you are exposed to trauma whether it be um you know physical trauma or or the mental trauma or secondary trauma that you have some of uh of the things whether it be you know at home at the agency level at you know the personal level to you know sleep diet exercise
All these sorts of things um that that you’re ready or that you you can take on these challenges or that you can reach out to the right person at the right time to do it I never thought about that this idea that for law enforcement the the sort of
Physical aspect could be a really good coping mechanism right Fitness and then the physical demands of the job but yet you’re in a a job at really high risk of physical injury and so when that happen happens you’ve lost one of your main coping mechanisms I also think that my
Community is maybe a little better structured to deal with this than than dicks Community than law enforcement because the intelligence Community um is is pretty structured and Consolidated you know um there’s there’s a lot of questions that we are we haven’t even really gotten to is what about these
Contractors who have security clearances but you know wouldn’t get all of the sort of um part of an agency yeah the benefits You’ get is from federal employment that’s a huge issue but but let’s just start with the federal employees you know there’s only um you
Know 18 agencies for them and so uh they they’ve got this structure in place where you could be getting Services through your employer um whereas law enforcement is such a sprawling Enterprise and then even if you know what a best practic is then you try to figure out how to disseminate it amongst
What 19,000 law enforcement organizations so exactly and I think that that that’s that’s part of the problem right if you have a great you know peer-to-peer program right where you’re finding this works that’s sustainable at a at at a large agency but you know there’s agencies of one there’s agencies of five
You know everything from you know the most rural place to you know right right in in in in Washington DC um that and that what might work or be sustainable in one place um might not somewhere else um which is which can be you know certainly problematic um what I
Have seen though too is that if you ask people will come so even folks from from some of these larger places um or larger peer support networks um they are willing to to reach out if if they’re asked but they have to know about it too so if they don’t know about
It they can’t help we we found that in some of the response we got to the piece that we read about the intelligence community that um organizations that support veterans came to us cuz they’ve never sort of thought about this community right but there are there’s a lot of um nonprofits private
Organizations that are here to try to help Law Enforcement Officers to help veterans uh but spies you know not not so much um and especially in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts there were an incredible uh number of our Intelligence Officers who are forward deployed who were there working
Alongside um soldiers and so and and sailors and service members and you know the military has structures for this the military has people like chaplain very formal services in place to yeah they’re formal services and there’s cultures that sort of understand who that person is and that they’re available to you and
How to use them um and those don’t exist you know they’re not the same parallel sort of services for the intelligence Community yeah and dick you were saying that that structure really is not there you or if it was if it if it is there you didn’t know that it was there
Beforehand and I mean personally I didn’t even think about it I just thought about my next shift yeah my schedule for the next couple days getting my workout in I mean that was that was my that was my way to decompress and not you know uh you know
Lose it for for a lack of a better term it was like I need to make sure I get that exercise in the middle of my shift because I’m working all the time so there’s actually one thing I want to ask I know we’re running short
On time but um you know one thing I’ve looked at is um law enforcement and and suicide and Su even suicide data collection wasn’t even formal until very recently um and in a in a not for profit had to had to really start and get the ball rolling and and start collecting
Data and stories on and you know they’re confidential and that’s shared by the family but on on you know officers that that die by Suicide um whether or not related to the job or not or or or somehow factored in um that it took a
Long time right we you know the the law enforcement Community knew knew it was an issue um I think everybody knew uh knew of somebody um either at a department or neighboring department or Academy classmate um where this happened um but it took a long time for for some
Of the you know the the focus in the data collection to come to light on that um and it’s now kind of becoming National well certainly is becoming National and it’s supported by um you know all the the the major you know law enforcement trade organizations and
Unions and what have you the folks that are that are involved in a lot of decision-makings um and I know that in the law enforcement Community but is that something that’s even being discussed or or considered for the for the the intelligence Community I think uh you know there’s a there’s sensitivities
Around people’s uh personal records in the intelligence Community right so there’s um there’s a lot of uh privacy kind of concerns I think that makes it really difficult to even understand um how many potential suicides there’s been there was a a relatively prominent suicide um a few years ago in the sense
Of a a fairly senior person was in the news on in the CIA right yeah exactly um and so I think sadly those kinds of events are ones that can prompt a conversation about it um you know this was a a circumstance where it seems that many of his colleagues were unaware that
That there may have even been suicide ideation and so it caught individuals by surprise and shocked many of them um you know one thing that’s interesting is we heard suicide brought up in some of the interviews we did for this report in the context of um that was situations where
There might be recognition of a traumatic uh traumatic exposure right so so I heard managers say well if someone committed suicide then I would understand that I needed to bring in uh employee support for my staff like that that I understand is that’s a secondary trauma exposure that we should be
Talking about um but that was sort of the only example it was only that circumstance it was you know that very personal instance um there wasn’t necessarily for example an acknowledgement that well what happens if you ask that person to watch hours and hours and hours of Isis
Decapitation videos to look at you know techniques tactics signatures of Isis what do you you know maybe you think that should be what if they are having to look at um you know pictures and footage from the cartels of uh atrocities they’ve committed in order to intimidate the civilian population
Trying to identify which Cartel it is or you know just to because that’s the report you read and that’s the material that came in with it um I mean the work is serious work um and so there’s an appreciation that it’s serious there’s an appreciation that that there’s heavy
Content in it um but I just think there isn’t exposure and awareness of the mental health risks that that brings um even I saw that even with very compassionate managers who really cared about other people wanted to support them it just wasn’t in their list of things they were thinking about you know
This um that hey that’s something I should be considering how that’s affecting my staff and then I think something that’s really important to keep in mind for secondary trauma I know I said it earlier but that there’s a cumulative effect of it and so um just
Because you were able to do the job yesterday does not mean that you can do the job today it does not mean that you can do the job tomorrow um and I think it can be really hard for employees who are coping with this you know that as
That resilience starts to slowly break down as they become sort of more emotionally fragile to it to recognize what’s happening and understand what they can do to try to help because they just want to do their jobs I mean the intelligence Community is such a patriotic dedicated
Workforce um and I feel like so many people are just going to blame themselves or not understand what’s happening and just try to put their head down and push through uh and that is you know that’s not the only technique that’s not necessarily going to help
Them um and and and help them when they really do need something else yeah what can these communities do so that the individuals in them can be supported I mean I think awareness can go a long way in the intelligence Community understanding what secondary trauma is understanding how to describe it um if
You’re experiencing it being able to articul that having a vocabulary that you understand that someone that can help you also understands I think that is actually very powerful and very important um I think then there needs to be services available to you so there needs to be sufficient employee support
Sort of structures employee assistant structures I’m not sure whether they are sufficient now in the intelligence community no one’s ever done a study on that um so whether or not there are sufficient services but there need to be services and people need to feel like that it’s it’s a not a choice between
Getting help and keeping their job so people need to feel confident that they can get support uh without having to take on this great personal risk and so I think that can happen through policies being transparent um through also just helping people maybe with some examples understand what are situations where
Someone has sought mental health treatment in the intelligence community and is not meant that their clearance been taken away so dick you know told about talked about how he still got to keep his badge you know even though he went through this experience and so having those stories that people
Understand that that’s not they’re not making that tradeoff upfront when they even start to like ask the question um and then I think there’s a lot that could be done in making sure that these issues are things that we train our managers about we talk to them about it
They understand what this is they understand what resources are available to them they understand how to see um signs that someone is struggling to manage traumatic stress so that they can make sure that they get the help that they need um I think that all of these things could be really helpful towards
Cultivating sort of a culture of mental Wellness inside the IC and following on that and and speaking from the law enforcement lens I’m I’m still involved outside Rand in in police training in officer safety and wellness and I think they really go you know you know hand
Inand I talked about building up some of your protective factors it’s it’s kind of encouraging a a healthy culture that really hasn’t existed or partially exists it might exist within the individual but certainly not across the 19,000 law enforcement agencies certainly not within certain agencies or under certain managers or under certain
Conditions um as well so uh um you know I I I think of it you know when I go on the road it’s it’s it’s everything that um that I did wrong and right because I didn’t wear my vest every day stupid right I will say that’s idiotic I didn’t
Sleep a lot sometimes I would sleep four and a half hours then go back into work 5 hours go back into work I had a baby at home I’d sleep in a different room on the couch and then go into work not the best decision and then be then tell my
Partner hey I why don’t you drive today because you know I feel like I’ve had a couple drinks that’s how tired I am and and then um so again it’s it’s it’s knowing um what to do but then also you know doing it it’s it’s the the sleeping
Eating healthy having a a healthy you know uh lifestyle whether it be you know physical fitness but then there’s the the you know the the mental Fitness aspect of the of these things too whether it be um you know even even from I think Heather you mentioned men the the supervisory role
That that reaching out the recognizing the signs that that somebody might need a day off or might need to go home early or might need to talk to somebody um and not being afraid to have that conversation because I think that’s been one of these you know there’s there’s
Tons of stigma in the law enforcing Community that’s that’s led to poor outcomes that’s led to bad uses of force that’s led to um accidents that’s led to killings has led to domestic violence has led to firings and and I mean I know people that have been involved in that
Just off the top of my head that’s led to um you know uh alcohol abuse and substance abuse I’m I’m thinking I I have people’s phone numbers in my phone where I’m like I I know this this has happened to these people um and it’s it’s it’s really you know we talk about
You know the police profession as as as a Brotherhood you know man or woman doesn’t matter it’s it’s it’s a Brotherhood well you know I think we need to to to think about okay if it’s a Brotherhood well we need to take care of this person um and sometimes that means
Um having those those those difficult decisions or maybe asking them to turn in their gter badge for for a little bit of time or or taking a few days off to um you know to to to mentally regroup or physically you know uh regroup from something I think there’s you know some
Some some small incremental changes and I know I rattled off a lot of different things um but it could be a a extremely mundane boring job 5 minutes later you’re not going to come home for for 24 hours because of of what’s going on at work um so it’s difficult to plan for
All that but um you know really building up these these these protective factors and and and minimizing your risks I sound like a nerd now right um I sound I I sound like some of some of the reading I’ve done but but but you know as as
You’ve done I’ve walked the walk I’ve talked the talk and and I’ve uh I’ve only learned through my own mistakes um and I guess to to some extent some minor triumphs along the way I think they’re they’re both we both come from really insular communities and there sort of
Trust-based communities there’s sort of a fraternity aspect you you mentioned Brotherhood I think that um all of those uh traits can be negative potentially towards uh reporting communicating needs acknowledging these things you know creating sort of this stigma based culture that there’s a positive opportunity with all of those traits too
Right if you can kind of push those values towards um and destigmatize some of this towards like hey we trust each other and you needing help does not mean I don’t trust you and I you know I’m going to take care of you and you are
Part of this community so I do think it’s making sure that all of those values that were channeling the way in which they can be used positively and mitigating the way in which they they could Channel negatively mhm thank you both for sharing your stories and being
On the show and for all the research you do and all the work you do um I really appreciate it thank you great thank You that’s it for today’s episode you can learn more about the topics that Heather and Dick and I discussed in the show notes at rand.org podcast Rand is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision- making through research and Analysis
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