 A Training Method to Improve Police Use of Force Decision MakingJudith P. Andersen and Harri Gustafsberg SAGE Open, 2016, vol. 6, issue 2, 2158244016638708 Abstract: Police safety and use of force decisions during critical incidents are an ongoing source of concern for both police practitioners and the public. Prior research in the area of police performance reveals that psychological and physiological stress responses during critical incidents can shape the outcome of the incident, either positively or negatively. The goal of this study was to test a training method to improve use of force decision making among police. This randomized controlled pilot study consisted of training officers to apply techniques to enhance psychological and physiological control during stressful critical incidents. Of a pool of 80 police officers, potential participants were invited based on equivalent age, years of experience, physiological characteristics (i.e., body mass index [BMI] and cardiovascular reactivity), and expertise. Results revealed that the intervention group displayed significantly better physiological control, situational awareness, and overall performance, and made a greater number of correct use of force decisions than officers in the control group (all p s Keywords: police special forces; resilience; critical incidents; physiological reactivity; use of force; situational awareness; SWAT (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:6:y:2016:i:2:p:2158244016638708 Access Statistics for this article More articles in SAGE Open |
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