[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 99 (Wednesday, May 27, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2314-H2316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              LAW ENFORCEMENT SUICIDE DATA COLLECTION ACT

  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (S. 2746) to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law 
enforcement, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                S. 2746

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Law Enforcement Suicide Data 
     Collection Act''.

     SEC. 2. INFORMATION ON SUICIDE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT.

       (a) Establishment.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Attorney General, acting through 
     the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall 
     establish, for the purpose of preventing future law 
     enforcement suicides and promoting understanding of suicide 
     in law enforcement, the Law Enforcement Officers Suicide Data 
     Collection Program, under which law enforcement agencies may 
     submit to the Director information on suicides and attempted 
     suicides within such law enforcement agencies, including 
     information on--
       (1) the circumstances and events that occurred before each 
     suicide or attempted suicide;
       (2) the general location of each suicide or attempted 
     suicide;
       (3) the demographic information of each law enforcement 
     officer who commits or attempts suicide;
       (4) the occupational category, including criminal 
     investigator, corrections officer, line of duty officer, 911 
     dispatch operator, of each law enforcement officer who 
     commits or attempts suicide; and
       (5) the method used in each suicide or attempted suicide.
       (b) Policies.--The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall 
     work with the Confidentiality and Data Access Committee of 
     the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology to develop 
     publication policies to manage the risk of identity 
     disclosure based upon the best practices identified by other 
     Federal statistical programs.
       (c) Report.--Not later than 2 years after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Attorney 
     General, acting through the Director of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation, shall submit to Congress and publish on the 
     website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation a report 
     containing the information submitted to the Director pursuant 
     to subsection (a).
       (d) Confidentiality.--The report described under subsection 
     (c) may not include any personally identifiable information 
     of a law enforcement officer who commits or attempts suicide.
       (e) Definitions.--In this section--
       (1) the term ``law enforcement agency'' means a Federal, 
     State, Tribal, or local agency engaged in the prevention, 
     detection, or investigation, prosecution, or adjudication of 
     any violation of the criminal laws of the United States, a 
     State, Tribal, or a political subdivision of a State;
       (2) the term ``law enforcement officer'' means any current 
     or former officer (including a correctional officer), agent, 
     or employee of the United States, a State, Indian Tribe, or a 
     political subdivision of a State authorized by law to engage 
     in or supervise the prevention, detection, investigation, or 
     prosecution of any violation of the criminal laws of the 
     United States, a State, Indian Tribe, or a political 
     subdivision of a State; and
       (3) the term ``State'' means each of the several States, 
     the District of Columbia, and any commonwealth, territory, or 
     possession of the United States.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Titus). Pursuant to the rule, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) and the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.


                             General Leave

  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 2746, the Law 
Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act, which requires the FBI to 
establish a data collection program that gathers data on law 
enforcement and former law enforcement suicides at the local, State, 
and Federal levels.
  We consider this bill today in response to a growing epidemic of law 
enforcement suicides in America. Tragically, more than 227 U.S. law 
enforcement officers took their own lives last year, an increase of 
more than 50 deaths from the year before.
  While law enforcement officers are tasked with the responsibility of 
protecting our communities and responding to often dangerous emergency 
situations, the number who have died as a result of suicide has, in 
recent years, exceeded the numbers of officers lost in the line of 
duty.
  My community has been particularly affected by this issue. Last year, 
the New York Police Department lost nine officers in a deeply troubling 
string of suicides. With long, late hours, regular traumatic 
experiences, life-threatening situations, and work in constant 
proximity to firearms, law enforcement officers are at an increased 
risk for mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder, 
depression, and anxiety.
  A number of reports over past decades indicate that that law 
enforcement officers have an increased risk of suicide when compared to 
the general public. While suicide is currently the leading cause of 
death for law enforcement officers, the nearly 18,000 law enforcement 
agencies in this country lack a unified reporting mechanism for 
collecting data on these tragedies.

                              {time}  2015

  Without the proper information and statistics, law enforcement 
agencies and local, State, and Federal leaders are hindered in their 
ability to educate, prevent, and respond to this epidemic of suicides.
  This bill directs the FBI to establish the Law Enforcement Officers 
Suicide Data Collection Program to prevent future suicides and to 
promote the understanding of suicide in law enforcement by collecting 
information from Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies.
  Data allowed to be collected pursuant to this bill includes details 
relating to both suicides and attempted suicides, including the 
circumstances and location of each event, as well as demographic 
information of each law enforcement officer and the method used in each 
incident.
  It is imperative that the law enforcement community, mental health 
professionals, Congress, and the American people better understand the 
extent of, and the reasons for, this crisis.
  The bill, therefore, also requires public reporting of the FBI's 
findings so that Congress and others can best support State and local 
agencies that are grappling with the day-to-day consequences of officer 
suicide.
  Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the bipartisan effort to address 
this important issue. In the House, our colleague, Representative   
Mike Quigley, authored H.R. 3735, the companion to this Senate-passed 
bill. I commend him, and I commend the bill's Senate sponsor, Senator 
Catherine Cortez Masto, for their tireless work on behalf of law 
enforcement officers and their loved ones.
  Madam Speaker, I support this bill. I urge my colleagues to do the 
same, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 2746, the Law Enforcement 
Suicide Data Collection Act.
  Last year, Congress passed and the President signed into law the 
STOIC Act, a bill that I introduced with my good friend, Congresswoman 
Madeleine Dean. That bill improves mental health treatment for our 
Nation's law enforcement officers.

[[Page H2315]]

  Today, we are once again taking action to address the disturbingly 
high suicide rate among our police officers. The Law Enforcement 
Suicide Data Collection Act, which I am a very proud cosponsor of, 
would require the Federal Government to track suicides within the law 
enforcement community.
  According to Blue HELP, which is a nonprofit working to reduce 
stigmas attached to mental health for those in the law enforcement 
community, a record number of current or former police officers died by 
suicide last year; 228 current or former officers died by suicide in 
2019, compared with 172 in 2018.
  Since Blue HELP began collecting data over 4 years ago, more law 
enforcement officers have died by suicide than all other line-of-duty 
deaths combined. Organizations like Blue HELP do the best they can to 
track these tragic instances of law enforcement suicide. However, there 
is no comprehensive government effort to track attempted suicides and 
suicides in the law enforcement community.
  Line-of-duty deaths are tracked through the FBI's Law Enforcement 
Officers Killed and Assaulted Program. This program aims to provide 
potentially lifesaving information to law enforcement agencies with a 
focus on preventing future incidents. Suicide should similarly be 
tracked so we can implement more effective suicide prevention programs, 
in turn saving more lives.
  S. 2746 requires the FBI Director to establish the Law Enforcement 
Officers Suicide Data Collection Program to collect data on law 
enforcement and former law enforcement suicides at the local, State, 
and Federal levels. Participating law enforcement agencies will report 
suicide information to the FBI Director. The FBI Director will then 
submit a report to Congress and publish the report online to share this 
vital information on suicides and attempted suicides in law 
enforcement.
  Madam Speaker, 2 weeks ago, we recognized National Law Enforcement 
Week. While we may be too late in taking up this legislation for Police 
Week, it is never too late to help the brave men and women who protect 
our communities. I thank Representatives Steube, Quigley, and Dean, as 
well as Senators Blunt, Hawley, Cortez Masto, and Coons, for 
introducing this legislation.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting S. 2746, 
the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, in this time of great national crisis, we are all even 
more dependent on our law enforcement personnel, on our first 
responders, on the heroes that we honored by the title of the bill we 
passed a couple of weeks ago, the HEROES Act.
  It is unfortunate, obviously, that the stress that some of these 
heroes undergo, the stress that our police officers undergo, leads to a 
greater suicide rate. Especially in this time of crisis, we can expect 
that only to increase. It is imperative that we do whatever we can to 
safeguard the lives of those we depend on, to safeguard the lives of 
the heroes that we all need.
  Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that we do not have a national 
database with which to inform proper actions to help deal with this 
problem and save lives. That is why we are supporting this bill today, 
to solve this problem, to eliminate this void, so that we can better 
inform ourselves, the country, all the different agencies in the 
country, and State, Federal, and local agencies as to what actions 
might be taken to mitigate this threat to the lives of those we depend 
on.
  Madam Speaker, I very much urge the passage of this bill, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Madam Speaker, I have no speakers at this time, 
and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley).
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the 
time.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Law Enforcement Suicide 
Data Collection Act, a Senate companion to bipartisan legislation that 
I authored and introduced to address the mental health needs of law 
enforcement officers across the country.
  Every day, our officers put their lives on the line to protect our 
communities. They work long shifts and respond to dangerous calls in 
order to keep crime off our streets and keep our citizens safe. This 
critical work does not come without a cost. Law enforcement officers 
often experience post-traumatic stress from their work environment.
  According to multiple studies, officers are more than twice as likely 
to die by suicide than in line-of-duty-related homicides or accidents. 
Suicide has become the number one cause of deaths for Federal, State, 
and local law enforcement officers around the country. In fact, in my 
hometown of Chicago, the officer suicide rate is 60 percent higher than 
the national average.
  Despite these sobering statistics, there is no Federal Government 
program to track the number of officers who attempt suicide or lose 
their lives to suicide every year. My legislation creates a data 
collection program within the FBI to track law enforcement suicides at 
the local, State, and Federal levels.
  By providing accurate and detailed information, this bill would help 
police departments implement more effective suicide prevention and 
post-prevention programs. These intervention programs will save lives.
  It is our turn to bring the brave men and women who fight for us the 
care they need and deserve.
  Madam Speaker, I am grateful to Chairman Nadler for his support of 
this important mission and for prioritizing this piece of legislation 
and bringing it to the House floor. I thank the committee staff and 
Hannah from my own staff for her extraordinary work on this measure.
  Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support the Law Enforcement 
Suicide Data Collection bill today.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield 
myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on S. 2746, 
the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, we appreciate the service of our law enforcement 
officers who face unique challenges and risks in protecting us every 
day. Today, we take an important step to recognize the psychological 
toll that serving in such an inherently dangerous job can take on law 
enforcement officers and work to combat the tragic epidemic of suicides 
among their ranks.
  Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the Law 
Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act so that we may be better able 
to address this crisis and save lives.
  Throughout our country, the vast majority of police officers execute 
their jobs with dignity, honor, and respect for the citizens they serve 
and protect, but it would be remiss if I did not take note of the 
alarming and appalling incidents involving individuals in law 
enforcement in the last few weeks. These include the death of Breonna 
Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minnesota, both at the hands of 
law enforcement officers, and the disturbing circumstances surrounding 
the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
  We must bring all those responsible to justice and work to improve 
accountability between law enforcement officers and the communities 
they serve.
  While we appreciate all of our law enforcement officers, we can't 
hide from America's history of racism and its deadly consequences. We 
see it in the disproportionate rate of COVID deaths, in our country's 
rates of mass incarceration, and, yes, in the treatment of African 
Americans by a few of our police officers.
  The ugly truth is clear: Black Americans often live under different 
rules. It is up to all of us to change them.
  Working with my colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary and with 
Members of Congress from all across the country, I will continue to 
fight to do so.

[[Page H2316]]

  But the bill before us today is a necessary and worthy bill, 
recognizing the honorable and selfless service that the vast majority 
of our police officers provide, and trying to deal with the high 
suicide rates that the stresses of this job that they do to protect us 
cause.
  We should pass this bill so we can start getting a handle on this 
problem to preserve the lives of the vast majority of our police 
officers who serve us honorably and without whom we would be adrift.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, as a member of the Law Enforcement 
Caucus and a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary and 
Homeland Security, I rise in support of S. 2746, the ``Law Enforcement 
Suicide Data Collection Act,'' which requires the FBI to open a 
voluntary data collection program to track suicides and attempted 
suicides within local, tribal, state and federal law enforcement.
  Information collected and maintained by the FBI will not include any 
personally identifiable information.
  The legislation also directs the FBI Director to submit an annual 
report on the data to Congress and publish the report on the FBI 
website.
  This program would serve as the principal data collection tool on 
suicides and attempted suicides within law enforcement across the 
country.
  It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this to commemorate 
National Police Week, which occurred earlier this month.
  Madam Speaker, this legislation reminds us of the enormous strain law 
enforcement personnel necessarily endure daily as they try to do their 
best to keep our communities safe and healthy.
  By providing accurate and detailed information on these suicides and 
attempted suicides, more effective prevention programs could be 
implemented to save lives.
  I urge all members to Join me in voting for S. 2746, the Law 
Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, S. 2746.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________