'Dark Blue' film among the South Australian responses to struggle of police officers with post-traumatic stress

Jeff Lang, real-life South Australian detective and actor, is featured in the film Dark Blue.

Real-life South Australian detective and actor Jeff Lang was featured in a 2019 film Dark Blue about the struggle for police officers and other emergency workers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The federal government financed the $1million 45-minute film with funds from seized criminal assets. Lang plays a dedicated police officer devolving from eager cadet to a broken man. Experiences told by police officers from around Australia were collated by South Australian singer/songwriter John Schumann and put together by award-winning film-making father-son Mike and Corey Piper.

Also in 2019, the South Australian Police Association (but not the police force hierarchy) supported Flinders University research into the effects on police officers of witnessing murder, family violence, sex and race crime, against children, disabled and the elderly, along with workplace injury or death and road trauma. The “Resilience among police in South Australia” study, for a PhD at Flinders University, was by Andrew Paterson, a long-time veteran of the state’s criminal justice system and a former head of Mobilong prison in the 1990s.

Fifty police officers, three psychiatrists and three psychologists contributed to Paterson’s 371-page study. The psychologists gave police management mixed reviews on handling of mental health. The report argued for self-care and resilience training in the force, starting at police academy level. It said there was a need to bridge the gap between senior ranks and junior officers.

The South Australian police employee assistance section, managed by chief inspector Shane Johnson, led the South Australian police force’s response to the new stress on stress. It coordinated a team of psychologists, nurses and social workers managing officers’ wellbeing. About 1000 supervisors were trained in mental health support for frontline officers.