Some of the most important lessons in law enforcement are taught by involuntary instructors. These teachings come from the grave, imparted by officers who made the ultimate sacrifice and, regrettably, often unwittingly abetted their own sad fate through misjudgments, vulnerable tactics, and flawed decision-making. Beginning decades ago with the groundbreaking writing of the late and...Read More
Can just four hours of instruction on sleep problems and improvement help tired cops face the job with significantly less fatigue? Results of a recently published pilot study with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police suggest that’s possible. In a first-of-its-kind test, researchers headed by Dr. Lois James of Washington State U. in Spokane have found...Read More
You may recall the world’s first study of the effect of body-worn cameras on officers’ use of force and on citizens’ complaints against police. Conducted with the Rialto (CA) PD and published in 2014, this benchmark research showed that during a year that some officers were equipped with body cams, use-of-force incidents dropped about 50%...Read More
A major new white paper from a leading risk-management organization vigorously rebuts reform advocates who are pushing for tighter restrictions on police use of force than the standard required by the US Supreme Court. The 22-page paper, issued by the California-based group Lexipol, warns that some key arguments in favor of stricter force policies are,...Read More
Civilians who’ve never had to physically restrain an “ain’t-gonna-be-controlled” suspect usually have no idea how much force and how many officers may be required to gain compliance. So when they see video of cops trying to subdue an unyielding subject, it’s easy for their naïve eyes to interpret knee strikes, baton strikes, CEW hits, and...Read More
A favored tactic of plaintiffs’ attorneys in civil suits is to cast doubt on an officer’s credibility by emphasizing errors in the officer’s recall of details about the critical incident at issue. Now a major new study by a Force Science research team provides unequivocal scientific support for the fact that erroneous memories of life-threatening...Read More
Gaps, inconsistencies, and errors in officers’ accounts of high-stress events may look like evidence of lies and deception. But a recent blog posting by an Advanced Force Science Specialist explains why leaping to that conclusion is likely to be wrong. The article, “Imperfect Recall: How Memory Impacts Police Use of Force Investigations” by Jason Helfer,...Read More
A recent US Appeals Court decision hinged on whether an officer’s use of a CEW was objectively reasonable, but an important subtext in the case concerns de-escalation—more precisely, whether a fateful escalation of force could have been prevented in the first place by a different attitude and different language. The Michigan case, Marshall v. City...Read More
Police officers show significantly greater evidence of unconscious racial bias when they’re fatigued, according to a newly reported study by a researcher at Washington State U. in Spokane. “When officers received less sleep preceding each test session, they were significantly more likely to associate Black Americans with weapons compared with when they had received more...Read More
New findings about officers’ efforts to administer combat medical care at the scenes of OISs will be revealed at this year’s annual Lewinski Lecture on Nov. 21. Dr. Matthew Sztajnkrycer, the internationally recognized “SWAT doc” and Force Science consultant associated with the Mayo Clinic, will discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and lessons learned from his unique...Read More
