On this Valentine’s Day, we at Gangscope thought we would talk about YOU – the officers or law enforcement personnel, who put your lives on the line every day to make our communities safer places to live. We love you and we thank you for all you are doing each day. We’d like you to take a moment and think about YOURSELF too.  Think about how you can care for yourself better, how you can work to improve your daily stress, and how you can understand the importance of mental health, especially in such a stressful job as yours.

Whether you’re a patrol officer, a supervisor, a correctional officer, or a dispatcher, each new call or assignment comes with the possibility of witnessing something very disturbing. Incidences of domestic violence, child abuse, fatal traffic accidents, an officer-involved shooting, and more can be a regular part of the job. These types of incidents take a toll on a person over time. In addition, the scrutiny that police officers and departments are under is greater than ever before.

Good mental health and psychological well-being are just as essential as strong physical health for law enforcement officers to be effective in doing their jobs well and keeping our streets safe.  It is imperative to keep the officer from experiencing burnout and even more serious issues, such as PTSD or suicidal thoughts. Police officers actually have a 54% higher rate of suicide than the general U.S. working population.

Officers’ mental health has been kept a big secret for a long time. In the past, most learned to be “tough as nails” and “not talk about it”. Fortunately, most departments are getting better at opening up the topic of mental health and offer support. It is important to look for peer support – to talk to your friends and co-workers about what you are experiencing. Other options to consider are peer support groups, psychological counseling, medication, and de-stressing activities such as yoga, meditation, or spiritual worship.

Give yourself a break and make your mental health a top priority. It will not only help with the job, but with relationships, marriages, and your future physical health. Listed below are just a few resources available.

1-800-COPLINE(1-800-267-5463)
Answered by current & retired LEO’s.

Help for Our Heroes Program
Especially for veterans, police officers, and first responders.
1-888-919-2561

Shatterproof First Responders Program
1-844-423-3204.

The GangScope Team

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GangScope™ is an intelligence database that helps capture, analyze, search and share intelligence on criminals, gangs, and more. GangScope acts as a first-tier, internal database that manages data on known and suspected criminals and gang members. Intelligence is collected per incident and can include qualifiers, associates, acquaintances (points of contact), witnesses, images, and documents. GangScope’s collection of detailed information aids in investigations, analysis and ultimately solving crime. The software complies with standards outlined by federal (28 CFR) policies. While complying with standards, GangScope™ boasts usability through simple yet extensive data mining via search, reports, profiles, and watches.

The overall goal of GangScope™ is to provide law enforcement personnel/ crime analysts/ correctional officers/prosecutors with maximum data through a friendly user interface while remaining cost-effective.  

A non-gang version – IntelScope is also available if needed.

To learn more or to schedule a full demo of our system – request a demo here. We would welcome the opportunity to show you how Gangscope can help your department organize and store your data in a secure and compliant way.