RT Article
T1 Does de-escalation training work?
JF Criminology & public policy
VO 19
IS 3
SP 721
OP 759
A1 Engel, Robin S.
A2 Madensen, Tamara
A2 McManus, Hannah D.
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1727593006
AB Research De-escalation training has been widely implemented by U.S. police agencies in the wake of adverse public reaction to recent controversial police use-of-force incidents. Despite vast promotion from politicians, academics, expert panels, and the public, we know little about the effects of de-escalation training on officers and police-citizen interactions. In this article, we offer findings from a multidisciplinary systematic literature review that demonstrate limited knowledge concerning the impact of de-escalation training across all professions. We identified 64 de-escalation training evaluations conducted over a 40-year period, primarily in the fields of nursing and psychiatry. Policy Implications Although assessment outcomes reveal few adverse consequences and provide some confidence that de-escalation trainings lead to slight-to-moderate individual and organizational improvements, conclusions concerning the effectiveness of de-escalation training are limited by the questionable quality of almost all evaluation research designs. As such, important questions regarding the impact of de-escalation training for police remain. Given the critical impact that de-escalation training could have on officers and the public they serve, we conclude with a direct call to academics, practitioners, and funders across the field of policing to prioritize as soon as possible the testing of de-escalation and other police use-of-force policies, tactics, and training.
K1 De-escalation
K1 Training
K1 Police
DO 10.1111/1745-9133.12467