Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. My name is Roger Sutherland, certified nutritionist, veteran law enforcement officer, and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades. Through this podcast, I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's show. And welcome back to another episode of a Healthy Shift Podcast. My name is Roger Sutherland. I'm a veteran shift worker of over 40 years with Victoria Pulice in Melbourne. And today's episode is not an easy one to record, but it really matters. This is going to be part one of a two-part podcast series. The first one is today. And the title, The Cost of Silence in Policing and How Speaking Up Ends Careers. Now, this episode is about silence in policing and why silence is one of the biggest threats to police well-being worldwide at the moment. Now, I'm speaking certainly on behalf of myself here. Not everyone and not all police officers, but I'm certainly speaking on behalf of a vast majority of a lot of them. Now, this is not about one country. It's not about one agency, but it is about a system-wide problem that is continually repeating itself. And I know this topic only too well. How? Because I've lived it. And silence in policing rarely gets any attention. It doesn't make the news, and there's no groundbreaking headline, and they certainly don't hold an urgent press conference for it. But silence causes damage quietly over years across careers, across families. Because silence is what happens when officers stop speaking up because nothing changes. Silence is what happens when people are struggling, but know that there will be consequences if they say so. Silence is what happens when exhaustion becomes the norm, and burnout is dismissed as it's just part of the job. And silence doesn't just sit there, it actually isolates really good police officers. It absolutely drives decent people out of the job, and it hides problems until they show up as unplanned leave, illness, mistakes, complaints, resignations, and even worse than that. And here's the part that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Policing is built on communication. Police officers are trained from the very beginning on how to talk to victims, how to listen, how to de-escalate, how to ask the right questions under pressure. But internally, policing is terrible at communication. And this happens at every single rank. When it comes to our own people, silence becomes the default. Now I'm going to share part of my own story, and it's not for sympathy, but because it's going to show you just how silence actually works inside an organization. After nearly 40 years in policing, at a time when I was thriving and genuinely enjoying the job, still, after four decades, my career ended suddenly. It wasn't because I did something wrong. And it wasn't because I couldn't cope with the work. Because I certainly was and I was loving the job. Still, and I was known for that passion. But because I spoke up. Now I was the victim of unwanted sexual harassment by an employee of a partner organization. I did exactly what we tell other police officers to do. I reported it. And I asked for help. And you know what? No one knew what to do. There was no policy, there was no structure, there was no lawn, there was nothing. I was just passed from department to department. There was no ownership, and there was no clear process. And you know what else there wasn't? There was absolutely no leadership at all. And the louder I spoke about it, the worse it became. What should have been handled quickly, efficiently, and professionally turned into targeted bullying, which was designed to silence and get rid of me. And this is a pattern that many police officers will recognize. In policing, raising a problem often sees the person raising it become the problem. Now I can promise you that if the person that was the offender in my situation had have walked into their management and told their management that I did what she had done, I would have been out of a job instantly. And yet I was made the offender and forced to work in the same environment. Silence is enforced through process, through delay, through being ignored, through emails just being unanswered. And then you become labeled as difficult. And that silence didn't protect the organization. Not at all. But what it did do was it destroyed me. And the place that was meant to protect me became the source of my harm. And what that's called is sanctuary trauma. And it has consequences. Not from anything that I'd seen outside working in the job, but by the own people who were managed and paid to protect me. The stress became so severe that I suffered a transient ischemic attack. And to those that are unaware, that's a stroke. At a time when I was in peak physical health. Well, or so I thought. When I landed at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stroke ambulance, I was told that that is what stress will do to a body, regardless of your physical condition. So five years of psychology, four years of psychiatry, medication, an enormous strain on my personal life. And if it wasn't for my partner that I have today, I'm not entirely sure where I would be. And if it wasn't for one of my one or two of my best friends who showed me the light, I'm not sure where I would be. Eventually, I was forced out. There was no contact. There was no acknowledgement at all. Ah. Right up until they wanted to dispose of me. And then it became putrid with what was raised, with no right of reply and no defense. I left quietly. No fight. No noise. I got a very, very good piece of advice in the early days. Roger, let's just get you through this losing the minimum amount of bark. And it was such good advice. And 18 months after retiring, which was in August of 2024, I still hadn't heard a word from the organization that I gave 40 years to. No thank you. No recognition. Certainly no send-off or dinner. I eventually received my certificate of service 18 months later. Did they just send it to me? No. I got an email. We've got it. What's your address and we'll post it to you. But the way that came about was someone who had seen the work that I'm doing today actually reached out and said, I see what you're doing now. It's amazing. How are you going? Are you still in the job? And I told them the story, and they were absolutely horrified. And they went to bat to retrieve what I should have got in a ceremony as I was leaving. Not just left with no communication. Discarded. Just like rubbish. This was an organization that I personally gave two marriages to. An organization that took my birthdays, kids' birthdays, wife's birthdays, friends' birthdays, anniversaries, school events, and family time without any hesitation whatsoever. They didn't care. Silence did that. And my story is not unique. I hear versions of this every week, and I know that there will be people sitting listening to this today nodding in agreement. From police, paramedics, nurses, corrections officers, different uniforms, same system. Silence is reinforced very early on in your policing. You learn quickly what is safe to say. You learn very quickly what isn't safe to say. You learn who speaks up and then disappears. You learn who gets labeled a problem. You learn that well-being policies exist on paper and in policy, but not in practice. So the rank and file just adapt. They stop reporting fatigue. They stop reporting bullying. And they stop admitting that they're not okay. And leadership often mistakes that silence for resilience. It isn't. Resilience is not suffering quietly. Resilience is not absorbing damage until someone breaks. Silence is an organizational convenience, and the cost is enormous. We are losing experienced police officers and we're losing mentors. We're losing educators. We're losing institutional knowledge and we've lost our way. And then we act surprised when retention collapses. And here's the truth if policing wants to improve well-being, retention, and trust, silence has to be challenged at every single rank. You can stick your posters, not with slogans and not with well-being apps, but with leadership that actually listens. Leadership that is human. Leadership that understands that harm does not come only from the street. Mine didn't. Mine came from internal. Breaking silence does not mean weakness. It actually means honesty. It means creating environments where someone can say, I'm not okay without fear. Before it becomes a crisis, before it becomes unplanned leave and an illness. And certainly before it becomes a resignation and even worse, a funeral. Not because they can't do the job or that the jobs change, but because the job refuses to hear and support them. If this episode resonates with you, you are not alone and you are absolutely not broken. Silence is the problem, not you. Now this is part one of a two-part series. And tomorrow the episode is Policing didn't break them, it actually let them down. And I ask that you look for that episode and you listen to that one as well. I really want to say thank you so much for listening. This has been a Healthy Shift Podcast. I'm Roger Suthern, a veteran of 40 years. And if this episode needs to be shared, I beg you please to share it. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.