Missoula’s County Attorney says helping victims of violent crime is deeply rewarding work. But Kirsten Pabst adds there’s also a dark side to the job that’s not talked about enough.
“Prosecutors have a really high incidence of turnover, burnout and a really high incidence of suicide,” Pabst says. “What we’re learning now, finally, is that doing this kind of work, which is good work and helping real people, isn’t sustainable unless you take care of it and process the trauma that we’re exposed to every day.”