Axios
The results of the increased police training could take years – if at all
Law enforcement agencies across the country have stepped up training programs in the year since George Floyd’s death – but no one should expect them to have enough leverage in a year to prevent more tragic deaths of black people, according to training experts and practitioners. Why it’s important: If training has a significant impact on keeping officers away from deadly confrontations, it can take years to produce results, experts say – and there’s little solid evidence that it works. Receive market news worthy of your time at Axios Markets. Subscribe for free. “The problem was that there are no national standards that show what the training should look like” – how many hours should be offered or how often should be updated, said Frank Straub, an expert on police training at the National Police Foundation. This leaves a patchwork of police authorities who do it independently. How it works: The programs that are generating interest are designed to avoid the use of force in a number of ways, including: De-escalation training teaches police officers how to defuse volatile situations. Implicit bias training shows officials how hidden biases can affect their actions and suggests ways to counter them. Intervention training, such as Georgetown Law’s Innovative Policing Program, teaches officers how to intervene to prevent a colleague from using inappropriate violence. Big picture: “The good news is that since George Floyd’s death, steps toward one Better law enforcement training has been undertaken, “said Scott Wolfe, a criminologist at Michigan State University who has studied the effects of de-escalation training. The pandemic has worked against the training efforts, which generally need to be personal to be effective. But now that COVID becomes less disruptive, trainers across the country are reporting increased interest in de-escalation techniques and identifying implicit biases. Backstory: There is already quite a bit of de-escalation and implicit bias training out there, due to increased interest after Michael Brown’s death in 2014 in Ferguson, Mo. Wolfe, and there are no national statistics on the 18,000+ law enforcement agencies across the country . However, a 2019 CBS News survey of 155 police departments in major cities across the country found that almost all offered some form of de-escalation training, and 69% said they offer implicit bias training. However, the quality can vary widely. “There’s a lot of crap training. Not all workouts are created equal,” said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and expert in violence training who testified for law enforcement in the Derek Chauvin Trial. The other side: The string of police deaths in the past few weeks – Daunte Wright, Andrew Brown Jr., Mario Gonzalez, Ma’Khia Bryant, and Adam Toledo – have once again shocked many Americans. And they have raised new questions about whether training has improved enough to ensure that people of color, especially black Americans, can expect fair treatment from the police. A new poll by Axios-Ipsos found that nearly seven in ten black Americans – 68% – said the police weren’t looking for people like them Gut. This is a drastically different perception than other groups: 83% of white Americans, 60% of Hispanic Americans, and 61% of Asian Americans said the police were taking good care of them. Unfortunately, the public shouldn’t expect a dramatic turnaround in preventing such incidents in just a year, training experts say. * It will take a few years for an effect to be felt, “said Robin Engel of the University of Cincinnati, who studied de-escalation training. It is also not clear how much difference even the best training could have made on the youngest prevent incidents. How much training does an officer take to distinguish a taser from a gun – the mistake the officer who shot Daunte Wright apparently made? “It obviously should never have happened, and police will say: “Are we doing all we can? To prevent this? ‘And they will say’ yes’ and move on,” said Stoughton. Ed Obayashi, an assistant sheriff who trains California law enforcement agencies in the use of force, said de-escalation tactics only work in situations where someone threatens to harm others or themselves, but it’s time to talk about it. “It’s just not applicable” when there is imminent danger and everything happens in seconds, he said. Between the lines: Even though every police station in the country has adopted some of them, the newer training techniques don’t have much evidence to suggest that they change the behavior of officers. A study of de-escalation training by the Louisville Metro Police Department found that the use of force was rejected. A study of implicit bias training by the New York Police Department found no evidence that it reduced racial or ethnic differences in police action. “My concern as a researcher is that we have very little evidence of the effectiveness of any type of officer training,” said Engel, one of the Re seekers who worked on the Louisville de-escalation study. What to watch out for: Whether Congress gets involved – or whether there might be other initiatives to effectively propose national training standards. A White House official noted that President Biden endorsed the House-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would improve training and require officials to try de-escalation techniques before using lethal force. “We now hope that in this George Floyd era post, and unfortunately in these subsequent uses of force … there would be an opportunity for the federal government to step in and say what the training standards should be,” Straub said. Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.
