Promising practices for de-escalation and use-of-force training in the police setting: a narrative review

Abstract

PurposeA narrative review of existing research literature was conducted to identify practices that are likely to improve the quality of de-escalation and use-of-force training for police officers.Design/methodology/approachPrevious reviews of de-escalation and use-of-force training literature were examined to identify promising training practices, and more targeted literature searches of various databases were undertaken to learn more about the potential impact of each practice on a trainee's ability to learn, retain, and transfer their training. Semi-structured interviews with five subject matter experts were also conducted to assess the degree to which they believed the identified practices were relevant to de-escalation and use-of-force training, and would enhance the quality of such training.FindingsTwenty practices emerged from the literature search. Each was deemed relevant and useful by the subject matter experts. These could be mapped on to four elements of training: (1) commitment to training (e.g. securing organizational support for training), (2) development of training (e.g. aligning training formats with learning objectives), (3) implementation of training (e.g. providing effective corrective feedback) and (4) evaluation and ongoing assessment of training (e.g. using multifaceted evaluation tools to monitor and modify training as necessary).Originality/valueThis review of training practices that may be relevant to de-escalation and use-of-force training is the broadest one conducted to date. The review should prompt more organized attempts to quantify the effectiveness of the training practices (e.g. through meta-analyses), and encourage more focused testing in a police training environment to determine their impact.

Considering Objective and Subjective Measures for Police Use of Force Evaluation

“…As reflected in the current data sample ( Figure 1 ), it is also possible to score well in one outcome but poorly in another, and competency in any individual skill may be lost and regained over the course of a single scenario or across an 18-month period. Therefore, it is important for police instructors and organisations to consider how UOF competencies are operationalised and how to design scenarios to elicit them for the purpose of evaluation and training [ 21 , 22 ].…”

“…Considering that all officers in the current sample data were deemed fit for duty by their agency at the time of each evaluation, the discrepancy between competence in operational and evaluative contexts needs to be reconciled. Several recent commentaries [ 21 , 22 , 32 , 33 ] highlight the importance of developing representative tasks that promote fidelity between training and operational contexts. In fact, O’Neill et al [ 34 ] caution that if UOF skills are not generalised to on-duty performance, “officers might be more likely to rely on tools such as chemical spray, conducted-energy devices, or firearms” (p. 366).…”

The Potential of Virtual Reality for Police Training Under Stress

“…The principle of constructive and concrete feedback in scenario-based training is repeatedly emphasized (Bennell et al, 2020;Jenkins et al, 2020;Rajakaruma et al, 2017) and observational case studies confirm police trainers spend a large part of the training time on explanations, demonstrations, and corrections (Cushion, 2018;Staller et al, 2020). Nevertheless, police trainers are criticized for providing lengthy, corrective feedback that focuses too much on the precise imitation of a technical or tactical solution (Blumberg, et al, 2019;Staller et al, 2020).…”

“…In the current practice, lengthy, verbal feedbacks take away much time of the valuable training hours that could otherwise be spent for qualitative time-on-task (Staller et al, 2020). Additionally, feedback sessions are often conducted immediately after scenario completion, when trainees are still likely to be aroused (Andersen et al, 2018) and therefore, unable to focus on and internalize the feedback (Bennell et al, 2020;Jenkins et al, 2020). To provide trainees with adequate feedback on their utilization of coping strategies, non-intrusive feedback options during the tasks in the scenarios or guided feedback sessions after the scenarios are needed in police training.…”

“…To provide trainees with adequate feedback on their utilization of coping strategies, non-intrusive feedback options during the tasks in the scenarios or guided feedback sessions after the scenarios are needed in police training. Augmenting feedback sessions with video material of the scenarios can reduce cognitive load in still aroused trainees or might allow the delay of feedback sessions to give trainees to time to recover from the stress levels during the scenario (Bennell et al, 2020;Jenkins et al, 2020).…”