Suicide in the Military: Exploring Ways to Decrease the Growing Trend
Abstract
Suicide is a complicated issue that is a result of actions taken to deal with unbearable mental distress and pain, fear or depression that engulfs a person's value for living and hope in life. This is more prevalent than ever in the US militarys active duty service with data revealing that the suicide rate for active duty troops across all service branches increased by over a third in five years, to 24.8 per 100,000 active duty members in 2018. This paper discusses the possible causes of the increase in suicide, symptoms of suicidal behavior, recommendations on how to prevent suicide, suggestions on implementing improved and innovative solutions to detect, diagnose, and treat suicide, and finally monitoring and restricting easy access to guns which is the leading means to commit suicide. The Department of Defense (DoD) uses $1 billion of their $693 billion toward suicide prevention. These funds invest in helpful programs and resources but with the suicide rate increasing within the military year by year this paper examines how this money is being spent and recommends other areas where this money can be used and also recommends the DoD to double the funds towards suicide prevention to increase staff and implement new and innovative programs and resources.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 18, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1177702
Entities
People
- Brendan D. Jackson
Organizations
- Marine Corps University