AIKEN, S.C. - Many small police departments across the state have been left without means to provide counseling for its officers after violent incidents since the state Public Safety Department let its police psychologist go.

The agency has cut the position from its Criminal Justice Academy, and without it, agencies must go elsewhere for pre-employment psychological evaluations and post-incident counseling. It was unclear last week why the department made the cut.

"Right now, it's more or less up to each individual department," said J.C. Rowe, the executive director of the South Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's just put everybody in a bind."

The state's police psychologist position "should be the last to go out the door," Rowe said.

Larger departments, including Aiken's sheriff's and police forces, have contracts with private mental health providers for the pre-employment evaluations. City and county heath plans also include free counseling.

It's the small agencies with tight budgets that are hit hardest, Rowe said.

Barnwell Police Chief Todd Gantt learned how important good emotional counseling was last summer, when one of his officers shot a suspect to death during a struggle. A peer counseling group coordinated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division came to Barnwell days afterward to "debrief" the officer.

"It allows you to talk to peers who have been in similar positions and become aware that the emotions you're having are normal," Chief Gantt said.

Two Columbia psychologists have formed a partnership to provide private evaluations, stress tests and counseling for South Carolina law enforcement agencies. Their Web site, police-stress.com, went up two months ago.

"I was shocked when they made that cut," said Dorothy McCoy, who runs the site with Ron Frier. "Obviously, there are a lot of departments that don't have that service. I would have thought it would be the last to go."

McCoy says the isolation, odd-hour shift work, inherent danger in the work and on-again, off-again bursts of activity create the stress that places police officers near the top nationally in divorce rates. At the same time, the public mental health system is woefully overworked, she said.

Most metropolitan police agencies have their own staff psychologists, she says, "because they realize the importance of it."

"You don't want to put a person in a situation of being a police officer and having a gun if it's not a situation they can emotionally handle," she said.

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On the Net: www.police-stress.com

Information from: The Augusta Chronicle