Frequency of Training in Less-than-Lethal Force Tactics and Weapons: Results of a Two-State Survey

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell L. Ross ◽  
Mark Jones
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Deadly Force ◽  
Police Academy ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Liability Risk ◽  
Training Strategies

Failing to train police officers in the use of less-than-lethal force tactics and equipment increases the police department's liability risk. Police officers in Michigan and North Carolina (N=482) responded to a questionnaire pertaining to the training their departments have provided in less-than-lethal force tactics and equipment since graduating from the police academy. A number of respondents were unaware that their department had a non-deadly force policy, and a majority of those who were aware of a policy had never been tested in its contents. Patrol officers as a group had received training in a less timely manner than supervisors. Suggestions for formulating training strategies are provided.

scholarly journals Seeing Police: Cinematic Training and the Scripting of Police Vision

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 367-381
Author(s):  
Christina Aushana
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Training ◽  
Police Academy ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Police Recruits ◽  
Visual Texts ◽  
Training Materials ◽  
Praxis I ◽  
Critical Insight ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis

While contemporary ethnographies on policing describe the use of televisual and cinematic images as ancillary police training materials (Manning 2003; Moskos 2008), few studies have examined how these visual texts shape the practice of patrol work. One of my primary aims as an ethnographer is to find different ways of understanding everyday policing by bringing the materials that construct officers’ visual worlds under ethnographic analysis. These materials include cinematic images used in police academies to teach police recruits how to see like police officers. Attending to cinema’s mobility in training facilities where trainees learn how to screen situations, bodies, and encounters in the field can offer new insights into understanding police vision. I proceed with the knowledge that Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 film Training Day has been screened in San Diego’s police academy. While Training Day reproduces the kinds of visual practices that are part and parcel of policing praxis, I argue that an ethnographic reading of the film offers critical insight into what happens when an idealized police vision “meets the ground” in practice. I explore the productive tension between cinematic models like Training Day and everyday patrol work through an analysis of the “precarious cinema” of policing, a concept I use to understand how police officers’ engagements with Training Day reflect and reveal a mode of police vision that is often blind to the experiences of the policed, and the performance of ethnography as a visual profiling practice that offers new conceptual frames for approaching how these blinds spots manifest in the visual worlds of patrol officers. In a time when police violence and police brutality are invariably subject to the camera’s scrutiny and a scrutinizing public, the political stakes for an increasingly visible police vision include contending with, accounting for, and being answerable to its own visibility.

“Laying Hands” and Learning to Touch and Grab in the Police Academy

2019 ◽  
pp. 446-468
Author(s):  
Brian Lande
Keyword(s):  
Police Officer ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Police Academy ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Police Recruits ◽  
Hands On

Research on the formation of police officers generally focuses on the beliefs, accounts, and categories that recruits must master. Becoming a police officer, however, is not simply a matter of acquiring new attitudes and beliefs. This article attends to an unexplored side of police culture—the sensorial and tactile education that recruits undergo at the police academy. Rubenstein wrote in 1973 that a police officer’s first tool is his or her body. This article examines the formation of the police body by examining how police recruits learn to use their hands as instruments of control. In police vernacular, this means learning to “lay hands” (a term borrowed from Pentecostal traditions) or going “hands on.” This chapter focuses on two means of using the hands: searching and defensive tactics. It describes how instructors teach recruits to use their hands for touching, manipulating, and grabbing the clothing and flesh of others to sense weapons and contraband. It also examines how recruits are taught to grab, manipulate, twist, and strike others in order to gain control of “unruly” bodies. It concludes by discussing the implications of “touching like a cop” for understanding membership in the police force.

Cultivation theory: The impact of crime media's portrayal of race on the desire to become a U.S. police officer

2021 ◽  
pp. 146135572110365
Author(s):  
Wendi Pollock ◽  
Natalia D Tapia ◽  
Deborah Sibila
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Deadly Force ◽  
Cultivation Theory ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Current Article ◽  
The Impact

The death of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 again left people asking why U.S. police officers so commonly resort to the use of deadly force when interacting with Black individuals. The current article proposes that media, combined with cultivation theory and social cognition concepts may create implicit biases that are potential contributors to this problem. Police officers have a greater vulnerability to these biases because intake of crime-related media positively predicts their interest in selecting law enforcement as a career. Other predictors of an interest in working in law enforcement, and implications of these findings, are discussed.

scholarly journals An Examination of Police Culture and its Effects on Patrol Officers Attitudes towards Restorative Justice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Braeden Broschuk
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Work Group ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Sequential Mixed Methods ◽  
Training Specialist ◽  
Two Phases

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between restorative justice and police culture, and the level to which this culture acts as barrier to the successful implementation and use of restorative justice by frontline police officers. Using a multi-level work group framework, frontline officer’s attitudes and understanding of restorative justice and police culture beliefs are examined, and then their impact on frontline police work is assessed. This study employs an explanatory sequential mixed methods design and is conducted in two phases. The initial quantitative phase involved distributing a Likert-style survey to frontline officers to measure their attitudes and understanding of restorative justice and police culture variables. After analysis of the initial quantitative findings, semi-structured interview questions were developed building on these findings to provide for a more in-depth qualitative analysis. Results indicate that police culture variables such as solidarity, teamwork, crime fighting and tough on crime attitudes are still persistent in policing, but frontline officers are generally accepting of restorative justice, and believe that it has a place in their frontline work as a dispositional tool. Findings indicate, however, that officers perceive restorative justice as another option only for less serious crimes and low risk offenders, and not as a new method of managing offender activity. Restorative justice is not being used to its fullest potential. To increase use of RJ diversion more thorough training, specialist designations and supervisory and middle management direction is recommended.

Supervisory influences on officers’ perceptions of less lethal force policy: a multilevel analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Robert Ingram ◽  
Robert R. Weidner ◽  
Eugene A. Paoline III ◽  
William Terrill
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Climate ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy Perceptions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of sergeants’ less lethal force policy perceptions on subordinate officers’ policy perceptions. Sergeants are a critical level of supervision in police departments with respect to policy administration, particularly in regard to the use of force. Little empirical research, however, has been conducted on either officer policy perceptions or this aspect of the supervisory role. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys of 765 patrol officers and 146 patrol sergeants served as the data source. Multilevel modeling procedures were used to test for supervisory influences on officer force policy perceptions while controlling for relevant officer-level variables. Additional analyses were conducted to examine potential moderating effects for this sergeant-officer attitudinal relationship. Findings – Findings revealed that sergeant policy perceptions, views of top management, and their level of support had a significant impact on officers’ force policy perceptions. Furthermore, post hoc analyses revealed that sergeant support moderated the sergeant-officer force policy perception relationship. Research limitations/implications – The results indicate that officers’ force policy perceptions are associated with the attitudinal dispositions of sergeants. Future work could expand the focus on administrative attitudinal outcomes beyond less lethal force policies as well as other perceptions of the work environment. Practical implications – For police leaders, the findings illustrate the need to pay attention to mid-management levels and the organizational climate, as negative orientations can impact additional domains (i.e. policies and procedures) and other organizational members (i.e. subordinates). Originality/value – The study adds to the limited body of research on two accountability mechanisms of departments: administrative rulemaking and frontline supervision.

Patrol Officer Job Satisfaction Scale (POJSS)

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 710-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hakan Can ◽  
William Holt ◽  
Helen M. Hendy
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Patrol Officer ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Satisfaction Scale ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Usa

Purpose When patrol officers experience poor job satisfaction and make the decision to leave their profession, their departments face the cost of recruiting and training new officers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new measure that could be used by police departments to identify specific dimensions of job satisfaction in their officers so that appropriate interventions could be made before officers reach the point of ending their employment. Design/methodology/approach To enhance widespread applicability of the new measure, the 221 study participants were from convenience samples of patrol officers in the USA and Turkey (95.9 percent male; mean age=29.4 years; mean service=5.9 years). Officers completed anonymous surveys to report individual and departmental demographics, to give satisfaction ratings for a variety of aspects of their work environment, and to report other psychosocial variables that might be used to assess validity of job satisfaction dimensions. Findings Exploratory factor analysis produced the 14-item Patrol Officer Job Satisfaction Scale (POJSS) with three dimensions: supervisor fairness, peer comradery, occupational pride. The three POJSS dimensions showed acceptable goodness-of-fit, internal reliability, and test-retest reliability. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated no significant associations between nine individual and department demographics (gender, age, marital status, education, service years, weekly work hours, nation, city location, number of officers) and any of the three POJSS dimensions. Research limitations/implications One limitation of the present study was that it included only convenience samples of patrol officers from the USA and Turkey. Future research could conduct confirmatory factor analyses on more diverse and representative samples of patrol officers from various international locations to determine if they also perceive the same three POJSS dimensions of job satisfaction (supervisor fairness, peer comradery, occupational pride). Practical implications Police departments could use the POJSS as an assessment tool to identify any problems of poor job satisfaction in their patrol officers so they could provide targeted improvements. For example, if patrol officers report low ratings for supportive peers, some scholars have recommended the formation of officer support groups (Johnson, 2012; Pienaar et al., 2007; Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002; Scott, 2004; Stamper and Johlke, 2003; Toch, 2002; Walker et al., 2006). Social implications If patrol officers report low ratings for supervisor fairness, peer comradery, and occupational pride, police departments could arrange leadership seminars, hold “Clear the Air” meetings or anonymous surveys to allow patrol officers to identify specific improvements they suggest to improve these components of job satisfaction. Originality/value Research on police officer job satisfaction has been increasing in recent decades, but is still relatively sparse when compared to the study of employee job satisfaction in the private sector and other areas of government. Recent research on police job satisfaction has typically included law enforcement officers with a wide range of ranks, rather than focusing solely on patrol officers. Also, the few studies that focus on job satisfaction in patrol officers used either secondary data (Ingram and Lee, 2015) or re-evaluated data over eight-year old (Johnson, 2012). Especially with the recent turbulent events seen between community members and their front-line police officers (including in the USA and Turkey), available research may have missed the most important dimensions of job satisfaction for present patrol officers supporting the measure's widespread relevance.

On-the-Road Detection of Driving While Intoxicated

1979 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-266
Author(s):  
Douglas H. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Frequency Of Occurrence ◽  
Road Detection ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Driving While Intoxicated ◽  
The Road ◽  
On The Road

Visual cues were identified and procedures were developed to enhance on-the-road detection of driving while intoxicated (DWI) by police patrol officers. Related research was reviewed; police officers with demonstrated effectiveness in DWI detection were interviewed; DWI arrest reports were analyzed; and a study was conducted to determine the frequency of occurrence and relative discriminability of potential visual cues. Based on the results, a DWI detection Guide was developed; the Guide is currently being verified and evaluated in a field-study involving a sample of 10 law enforcement agencies.

Professional Ethics of Officers Responsible for Security and Public Order in the Light of Empirical Research

2019 ◽  
Vol Special Issue ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Marek Fałdowski
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Vocational Training ◽  
Problem Area ◽  
The State ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Police Academy ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
State Police ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior

The values and patterns of behavior of officers of the pre-war State Police find their reference in today’s rules of professional ethics for both policemen and officers in charge of public security and order. It is not without significance for today’s Police that the duty of an officer of the State Police to take control, both in the service and in private life, with the commandments that confirmed him in need to help those in need. Appealing to the values that are the foundation of the service is combined with the knowledge of the basic terms used in ethics. Determining whether the values raised in today’s service are not alien to police officers justifies the scientific exploration of the problem area in the title of the study. The article presents partial results of a survey carried out at the Police Academy in Szczytno on a group of policemen studying or undertaking vocational training, which refer to the issue discussed. Their goal was to determine, among others knowledge of the principles of professional ethics in force in the Police and the sources of their knowledge about these principles. In addition, the article attempts to diagnose standards that Polish policemen are guided by, among others by indicating the state of their knowledge in terms of attitudes and values that they should follow in their daily service.

Contribution of the Police Academy in Szczytno to Counter-terrorist Activities

2020 ◽  
Vol Special Issue ◽  
pp. 101-116
Author(s):  
Waldemar Zubrzycki
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
The State ◽  
Police Academy ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Different Levels

One of the state entities which have the task of preventing and combating terrorism is the Police, while the Police Academy in Szczytno is their intellectual base. It is not only an organisational unit of the Police, but also a higher education institution with legal personality. This status entitles it to teach at different levels of civilian higher education, as well as conduct in-service training for police officers. Education in the area of terrorist threats and counteracting them is aimed, on the one hand, at making the students aware of the scale of such threats and their accurate identification, as well as the ways of responding to them by the state and its institutions, and, on the other hand, at learning specific reflexes that will allow anyone who finds themselves in an area threatened by a terrorist attack to quickly assess the resulting threat and to react immediately. The goals set in this way are reflected in the employment structure of the academy, which includes specialist organisational units, and among the scientific and teaching staff are experts, including practitioners, who in the past carried out the tasks of the state at different levels of the system for counteracting terrorist threats. They systematically participate in scientific undertakings, including research projects, scientific conferences and publication work, participate in the work of expert teams, both national and international, and cooperate extensively with external entities. The result of their multidimensional activities is shaping and deepening social awareness of terrorist threats and desired attitudes towards them, as well as appropriate preparation of police officers, but also other services, to safely perform tasks related to the elimination of terrorist threats.

An Examination of Police Officers’ Insights Into Problem Identification and Problem Solving

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Bichler ◽  
Larry Gaines
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Patrol Officers ◽  
Problem Identification ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Police Presence

Problem solving begins with problem identification. Conventional knowledge suggests that because patrol officers work specific geographical areas (beats) on a fairly constant basis, they come to see where the problems exist; thus, police experience alone can be relied on to identify crime problems. However, few have examined whether officers are effective in identifying problems in their areas. This research examined the consistency of officer problem identification across focus groups for an entire police department in terms of the kinds of problems identified, the location of problems, and the suggested responses. Although there was little consistency across focus groups, officers were able to identify specific sites or properties thought to generate high levels of disorder-related calls. Solutions to crime problems tended to involve increased police presence for complex problems affecting areas and crime prevention for specific sites facing single-crime problems.

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