At some point in our lives, most of us will need assistance from law enforcement. Unfortunately, there is a general feeling in most of society that officers are not doing their jobs appropriately, and instead of having faith that police will be helpful, people fear police will re-victimize them. To address the dismay much of the public feels towards law enforcement, we must understand where it comes from. Implicit biases that result in unlawful traffic stops and arrests, excessive use of force, and an inability to understand how to properly handle those with mental health crises are just a few areas that have led to the disdain that many individuals feel towards police officers. These incidents are a direct reflection of ineffective training for law enforcement in de-escalation techniques and—seeing as officers are trained in this area the least—it is no wonder that some officers are incapable of doing their jobs judiciously.
Officers are mandated to take training in defensive tactics, firearm handling, and de-escalation techniques. However, there is a major imbalance on length of time in these categories. While the median for defensive tactics training officers receive is 49 hours and 58 hours of firearms training, recruits only receive a median of 8 hours of de-escalation training. The emphasis on defensive tactics and firearms training is undoubtedly crucial, but it may contribute to the extreme reaction from some officers that results in excessive force or civilian deaths. Extensive de-escalation training protects not only the public but the law enforcement agency. It would add additional protections to police officers to be able to conduct themselves in a manner that does not immediately have to result in violence or excessive force, saving the public from tragic fatalities and allowing law enforcement to avoid lawsuits that stem from police mistreatment of civilians.
Though de-escalation training is not a new concept, we must bring attention to deficiency in that aspect of police officer trainings. De-escalation tactics should be the forefront of police training to establish the need of understanding and empathy from officers when dealing with civilians. If the public feels that they are being treated as human beings by these people who hold so much power rather than criminals who do not deserve any compassion, we can begin to rebuild our trust in law enforcement and the justice system. Not only would an increase in these trainings benefit the public, but police officers may be able to be seen in a much more positive light.
We must demand a federally funded and mandated de-escalation training program for all officers that allows for continued training every year. We need to rebuild the public’s ease of mind and our trust in law enforcement, creating a harmonious relationship and bringing back the safety we need to feel within law enforcement. Without more emphasis on de-escalation training, society can continue to look forward to continued dread when it comes to our need for police officers in any situation.
Resources
https://www.rstreet.org/research/exploring-de-escalation-training-programs-impact-and-resourcing/
https://peacefulleadersacademy.com/blog/positive-impacts-of-police-de-escalation-training/
The emphasis on defensive tactics is usually justified as a job safety issue. People working in law enforcement don’t want to be killed on the job. But, really, how many police are killed at work (and not killed at work in traffic fatalities)? Over the past ten years, law enforcement deaths reported by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund have ranged from 118 in 2023 to 660 in 2021. This confounds “fatal injuries” with homicides, as according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate for homicides is much lower (ranged from 26 in 2024 to 64 in 2021). As I tell my students, about 50 law enforcement are killed (murdered) during their work each year, but police kill about 1,100 each year. Now, are police violently attacked? Sure, all the time. In the two-year period 2021-2022 there were 6,680 non-fatal injuries inflicted upon police by persons who assaulted them that were significant enough that the law enforcement person had to take at least one day off from work. I presume these were law enforcement personnel on duty, and we’re not including off-duty law enforcement people who get beat up in taverns or domestic disputes.
I had a relative, recently returned from two tours of duty in Vietnam, who didn’t like the way a couple police were bullying someone in a bar, and got into a fight with them, which he won. I believe he spent some months on the San Francisco Bay (in San Quentin) as a result. I don’t think that sort of thing should be counted as an assault on officers in their line of work, since bullying guys in bars while off duty isn’t really what law enforcement officers are paid to do.
What we need is for some social workers and police officers to put together a standard two-day eight-hour training system with a follow-up 2-hour session held months after the initial two-day dose where police learn de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques. Then, we need to study interactions with the public that people who’ve had the training experience in the year(s) following the training, and see whether the training has improved the experiences on the job for those officers, both in terms of their self-reported experiences and by examining their record of experiences in high-conflict situations. It would be a wonderful intervention and study, and if we could get dozens of different trainings tested all at about the same time and could determine that some of these were especially effective, then we could implement this federal program of paying for them, as you have suggested. What I fear is that we might just spend money on training that has little influence on police behavior. Currently, we already spend all those hours on defense training and firearms training, and I’m pretty sure that much of that training has never been studied to see whether it makes law enforcement personnel any safer.
Recent surveys concerning police include
the CATO Institute’s work from Emily Ekins “Policing in America: Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police”
According to the study presented by Ekins, only 12% of Hispanics, 13% of European Americans, and 19% of African Americans expressed “unfavorable” views toward police. While those are modest percentages, they aren’t really very small, and that represents a lot of people. Only 54% of African Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans were “definitely” willing to report crimes to the police (over 40% were not). Compare that to 78% of European American who would report a crime. Americans with African heritage have been suspicious of police for a long time. Ekins reports that in 1970 only 43% of Black Americans had a favorable view of police, and in 2015 that number was about the same (slightly lower) at 40%. This was a CATO Institute study, so it’s no surprise that there are obvious mathematical errors in the reported survey results, but I think the general trend that wealthier people have more positive attitudes about police is confirmed, even for Blacks, where those earning over $60,000 per year had 48% with favorable views of police, whereas only 41% of those earning less than $30,000 per year had favorable views (at all income levels, Black Americans had higher than 40% favorability rates for the police, so I don’t understand how Ekins reports that only 40% of African Americans have favorable views of the police).
The CATO study showed that 84% of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture (where the police can take your property and keep it if they suspect you might have used it in a crime, even if you haven’t been convicted of a crime); and 77% would prohibit police from using profanity with citizens; 68% wanted police to have more training on how to deal with confrontations; 79% wanted agencies outside the police force to investigate allegations of police wrongdoing; and 89% wanted police to wear body cameras.
The survey showed that 39% of African Americans reported knowing someone who had been physically mistreated by police, and that figure was much higher than for European Americans (18%) and Hispanics (27%).
Another study discussed by the Council on Criminal Justice in 2020 found that 91% of Black American adults believe that police treat black people less fairly than white people. Most Americans want to hold police more accountable, and want a federal database to track law enforcement personnel accused of misconduct. Most people also want police to live in the communities where they work. About nine out of ten Democratic Party voters wanted major changes in policing, whereas only about 14% of Republican voters wanted such changes.
A Gallup Poll asking how much confidence people have in the police shows Americans have never had particularly strong confidence: the highest ever recorded between 1993 and 2024 was about 64% (in 2004), and the lowest ever measured was about 44% (in 2023). The rate of confidence in 2024 was 51%, which is historically low, about the same as it was in 1993, 2014, and 2021, and higher than only three of the lowest confidence years (which were 2020, 2022, and 2023).
Low confidence in the police relates to a low level of confidence Americans feel for all their major public institutions. Americans have the most confidence in small business (68% with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence) and the military (61% with confidence). The police came in third with about 51% having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in them. Higher education and the medical system are the fourth place institutions with only 36% of Americans having much confidence in those, and from there, it goes down. Americans have the least confidence in big business (16%), television news (12%), and Congress (9%). The criminal justice system, at 21%, is an institution Americans don’t trust much either.
A Pew Trust poll (Pew is among the best sources for polling and surveys) showed that in December of 2018 about 30% of Americans had “a great deal of confidence” in police to “act in the best interests of the public”, but by December of 2021 that had fallen to 20% who had such Pollyannaish opinions.
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