Police In-Service Training

Send us Fan Mail Some 50 years ago, the policing scholar John van Maanen wrote an article titled "the asshole," concluding that the use of derogatory labels had an importance to the police occupation.  Using labels was important to police officers.  Essentially, the use of derogatory labels by police officers serves a purpose, and labeling people is part of a policing culture.  Some curr...

Send us Fan Mail Studies of policing and their wellbeing often focus on critical incidents.  These would be the officer-involved shooting incidents, or if they have to deal with some graphic crime scene.  But what might surprise some listeners is that an officer will also deal with organizational stressors that can be equally or even more harmful than a traumatic event.  Joining the podcast today...

Send us Fan Mail How good are the crime analysis centers that are a growing part of policing?  I've heard a lot of stories about how analysts have made major contributions to solving crimes and tracked wanted criminals, but those are similar to the war stories police officers tell each other.  They are true, but rare.  So, how effective are crime analysis centers?  Dr. Bradley O’Guinn, Assist...

Send us Fan Mail The leader of an organization has a difficult task.  Anyone coming up the chain in any police agency would appreciate the issues and problems of that agency.  While the leadership issues of a large PD would dwarf those of a smaller department, both would have features unique to their size and location.  Regardless of whether an agency is large, medium, or small, the difficulties o...

Send us Fan Mail Many police officers now carry less-lethal tools, which provide police officers with the means to apprehend resistant suspects without the need for hands-on tactics or firearms.  Hopefully this reduces the risk of civilian injury and death.  Still, a civilian can sustain an injury from a less-lethal tool.  Since most police agencies support the use of these tools, why not use the...

Send us Fan Mail Gunshot detections systems work.  No, gunshot detection systems don’t work.  Can we have it both ways?  It’s kind of like the first line in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Well?  Which is it?   This week we’ll be discussing Gunshot Detection Systems and the impact on evidence collection and crime.  Dr. Eric Piza, the Lipman Family Prof...

Send us Fan Mail Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an unproven tool is wasteful, and Artificial Intelligence equipment for policing can be just such an expensive outlay.  While there is a growing body of research showing the AI benefits and limits within policing, the jury is still out on its overall utility.  Professor Ian Adams joins the podcast to discuss his paper titled, “Improving...

Send us Fan Mail Almost 25% of guns are used multiple times at or very close to the same place or reused within a relatively short period of time.  Just like “hot spots” for crime, guns can share similar repeat characteristics. In fact, a single firearm should be considered “durable hardware” that may never go away. The emphasis on “gun crime” research has led to a relative lack of understanding a...

Send us Fan Mail Police officers understand evidence.  From their time in the police academy to the first time they testify in court, even traffic court, an officer understands the importance of providing clear provable information.  The evidence has to contribute to an argument that something is more than likely than not to be true.  But when we to listen to news reports they are going to focus o...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve all seen the movies in which a suspect is being interviewed by a bad cop and a good cop.  The detectives badger or con the suspect to a point of offering a false confession just to stop the process.  In the real world it is believed that false confessions make up 13% of wrongful convictions.  In the realm of evidence-based policing a relatively new approach to conducting sus...

Send us Fan Mail A sign means something.  When you see a stop sign there’s no mystery about its meaning.  Some signs are not as clear, and we have to interpret their meaning.  For example, when someone sees neighborhood disorder or social incivilities, such as obvious drug dealing, these serve as warning signals about the potential for crime victimization.  This can then lead to a fear of crime. ...

Send us Fan Mail A society wants order and the police were developed as the government vehicle to achieve that goal.  There is often tension between the goal of order and how it is achieved.  The tension often results from errors on the part of the responding officer.  This explains why alternative methods for dealing with lower-level social disorders have been explored.  Nevertheless, alternative...

Send us Fan Mail Mental health calls to the police can be challenging for many reasons.  One of the primary problems with sending the police is that they are not usually properly trained to handle a person experiencing a mental health crisis.  The past few years have seen shifts from a law enforcement to a service response.  The Co-Responder model melds police officers and social service clinician...

Send us Fan Mail Increasing the number of female police officers is a challenge for police agencies.  While there has been ample research on this topic, the issue remains, and so the research continues.  Dr. Kathleen Padilla, from the School of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Texas State University, joins the podcast to discuss her 2024 study exploring the advice current and former female of...

Send us Fan Mail The goal of this podcast is provide the police community with research information to improve their work or help solve a problem.  I could not do this without the research that is produced by scholars who have a solid working relationship with police agencies.  It’s helpful that this topic itself, police-researcher collaborations, has been studied to understand the motivations and...

Send us Fan Mail There are many new training programs being offered to police officers, and policy reforms are almost as prevalent.  This is no surprise, as both training and reforms are intended to improve modern policing.  What is less understood is the multi-dimensional aspects of training and reforms, and the diversity of police culture, which can impact the acceptance of both training topics...

Send us Fan Mail The answer to problems in policing is better policing, not its abolition.  If the move to eliminate policing were successful, “people will hate you.”  That was the response of Dr. Paige Vaughn, assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina.  In this episode, Dr. Vaughn explains that studying the public’s perception of...

Send us Fan Mail Policing tactics are directly related to those used to improve public health (e.g., the impact of abandoned housed on crime and interventions to reduce gun violence).  Policing can also benefit by including success stories along the lines of those used by many industries: counting the number of accident-free days.  Dr. Branas, the Chair of the department of epidemiology at Columbi...

Send us Fan Mail Policing includes more than just law enforcement.  Crime reduction is a thinking game: how can the police succeed while also saving their own time and resources?   Hunter M. Boehme, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina, joins the podcast to discuss what I call “less formal” methods for reducing crime. Ma...

Send us Fan Mail If a police officer is facing a critical incident they may delay their decisions because of something called “decision inertia.”  Officers don’t freeze up, but delay or fail to make decisions due to uncertainty.  Paradoxically, that uncertainty can be the result of training or agency policies that are intended to guide behavior.  Dr. Brandon May explains the issue, and discusses h...

Send us Fan Mail Understanding a police agencies history, both successes and failures, provides important insights for creating transparency and accountability.  Dr. Craig Uchida, from Justice Security Solutions, discusses his historical research at the LAPD, and explains some of the recommendations for improving policing, which can be made permanent in an agency. Main Topics Examining organizatio...

Send us Fan Mail The Use-of-Force Continuum is intended to provide guidance for police officers on the appropriate, proportional level of force to use when trying to gain compliance.  There seems to be a logical progression in the modern continuum, constructed in with the goal of minimizing an officer’s use of force.  This research found that physical force (soft and hard) as a ‘lower’ force optio...

Send us Fan Mail A police officer’s mental health can be impacted by more than just the personal and physical trauma they experience on the street.  Moral injuries are less tangible but similarly harmful events that can contribute to psychological and depressive disorders.  Dr. Lorraine Smith-MacDonald explains moral injuries and how they can impact police officers. Main Topics Moral injuries are...

Send us Fan Mail Trauma-informed interview training can help street-level police officers and investigators when interviewing sexual assault victims.  The training applies a victim-centered approach for understanding how trauma impacts memory and behavior.  Dr. Bradley Campbell discusses his research that evaluates the effectiveness of Trauma-informed interview training. Main Topics •Sexual assaul...

Send us Fan Mail Organizational Justice is a close relative or Procedural Justice.  And if it’s important for officers to treat citizens in a procedurally just manner, it is also important for police supervisors to treat their officers in an organizationally just manner.  Dr. Scott Wolfe explains the application of Organizational Justice in police agencies and how it can mediate the occupational s...