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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:25 pm
Time: 8:25 pm
Results for police firearms training
1 results foundAuthor: Morrison, Gregory B. Title: Police Firearms Training Survey: Final Report Summary: The Police Firearms Training Survey was administered to departments around the US during the late summer and fall of 2008. The purpose was to collect data on handgun/deadly force training policies and practices. There have been previous surveys on firearm training, most recently two in Washington State during the late 1990s, and in the early 2000s one focused on larger municipal, urban county and state departments. The present survey, however, sought a national snapshot of programs. As expected, the largest group of participants was comprised of local (i.e. city and county) departments. This report therefore focuses on the policies and practices of several hundred (n=312) local departments regarding instructor staffing and development; training that includes tactics and judgment; requalifying; and the assessment of officer-involved shootings (OIS). As found through past surveys, the over-arching characteristic of in-service handgun/deadly force training was the wide latitude exercised by departments. This variability is unlikely to surprise experienced practitioners or researchers who study police training. The nature and extent of this latitude, however, raise concerns about how prepared many police officers are for encounters that reasonably could involve the use or threatened use of deadly force. Some findings are encouraging, but others appear likely to have serious implications for officer and public safety; influence the public's perception of police progress on accountability; and impact on costs as measured in lives, serious injuries, disabilities and civil litigation. Staffing and instructor development: Some departments rely solely on fulltime instructors whose principal responsibility is firearms and related training. Most departments, however, depend on instructors for whom this responsibility is a collateral duty (i.e. a secondary extra responsibility) and, thus, is a relatively infrequent undertaking. The source of certification for handgun/deadly force instructors varies, though state-run or -approved courses are the norm. Continuing education and training for these instructors is far from universal, however, and varies in both its frequency and duration. Little is known about its content or the quality of its delivery. Training and requalifying: Over the past two decades, a clearer distinction has grown between "training" to maintain existing skills and introducing new ones, and rote "requalifying" on basic marksmanship skills. Departments nevertheless vary widely in their allotment of resources to these two major activities. Some departments requalify to the near exclusion of training, while many roughly split their resources evenly between training and requalifying. Others, however, primarily spend their resources on training, such as scenario-based activities that have in recent years become relatively common. As a result, these particular departments minimize their use of resources for rote marksmanship testing so as to concentrate on what are believed to be far more beneficial experiences. Yet scenario-based training takes three forms: computer-based, projected images of unfolding encounters; role-playing between trainers and trainees using either firearms modified to fire marking cartridges, paint-ball "guns" or non-firing props; and live-fire scenarios at conventional firing ranges where targets are used present varying threat levels and placement, and officers must contend with obstacles and make suitable use of cover and/or concealment. Not only do these three formats provide substantially different experiences qualitatively, but departments also vary widely on how many scenarios officers participate in during the typical training year. Assessing performance: Conveying vital officer performance information from field shootings and other high-risk encounters to trainers who design and deliver programming is indispensable. Nevertheless, few departments appear to have implemented such feedback loops, ones not to be confused with administrative investigations to determine adherence to policy and/or consider criminal charges against officers. Furthermore, trainers often are not provided access to the results of administrative investigations that could provide some useful information for continuously improving programs. History suggests that much of this disconnectedness is attributable to the combination of a protectiveness born of civil litigation and the lethargic development of handgun/deadly force training until the 1990s. The PFTS, along with previous research on deadly force training, point to several shortcomings that need attention from practitioners and researchers. For one, there should be training-specific feedback loops at larger municipal and urban county departments. The nature and extent of this feedback needs to revolve around evaluating a full array of connections between (1) training program content, delivery and certifying assessments and (2) officer performances in high-risk field encounters. Because larger departments experience high-risk encounters and officer-involved shootings on a relatively regular basis, sufficient data to support meaningful research and program evaluation projects would be available for internal analysis as well as larger projects examining performance across departments. The longstanding practice of academy qualifying followed by in-service requalifying is overdue for a conceptual overhaul because it remains deeply rooted in narrow tests of marksmanship and gunhandling. This is inadequate given contemporary assortments of training activities that feature tactics and judgment that, one hopes, positively influences the outcomes of high-risk encounters. Finally, a promising avenue for addressing these and other important aspects to contemporary deadly force training will be practitioner-researcher collaborative studies. Even though maximizing officer performance potential would enhance both police and public safety, the role of science in improving training for high-risk encounters is far from being fully exploited. This report provides one contribution to a body of knowledge that needs to be more fully developed during the remainder of the first quarter of the 21st century. We have learned many things about training and the use of deadly force in recent years, but there is much we do not know. We therefore need to work diligently to fill the gaps, some of which this study describes and discusses. The focus of future efforts should be to identify approaches that have a compelling empirical record on maximizing the safe, appropriate and effective use or threatened use of deadly force in high-risk encounters. Model programs beneficial to a wide range of federal, state and local police clearly comprise a worthwhile longterm goal. Details: Muncie, IN: Ball State University, 2011. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 28, 2017 at: ibrarian.net/navon/paper/Police_Firearms_Training_Survey___Final_Report.pdf? Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: ibrarian.net/navon/paper/Police_Firearms_Training_Survey___Final_Report.pdf?. Shelf Number: 146911 Keywords: Deadly ForceOfficer-Involved ShootingsPolice Education and TrainingPolice Firearms TrainingPolice Use of Force |