Over the years, I have met with a lot of police trainers who are very frustrated at the level of commitment their respective departments are willing to make to training. It's not that trainers are unaware of what needs to be done to make their training programs more effective in reducing officer injuries, or even that their bosses lack much of the same knowledge - it's that there often seems to be no emphasis placed on the importance of reaching that goal.
Why do you think that is?
There was a time when training, although obviously important, did not seem to take on the major emphasis that it does today. Following some sort of preliminary introduction to law enforcement - typically in an academy setting - officers went to work doing "real police work". Maybe - once in a while - there would be a short class or training session on this or that, but not often.
Now, of course, things have changed. We do a lot more training, or at least we should. The pace of society, rapid advancements in technology, and the crush of new information, have all joined to make it almost impossible to not do a significant amount of training. In order to stay up-to-date on all of the things coming down the pike, departments must do a load of training, and that training must be considerably more sophisticated.
Except they often don't.
Many departmental administrations are still "stuck" in the mode where they view training as a "nice to do". That means that, although they know that training should be done, they really struggle with finding the resources to do it. The daily demands of running the department - sometimes exacerbated by a shortage of money, usually made worse by a shortage of time (i.e. workable "man-hours"), leads to the placing of training farther down the priority list than it should be.
Most bosses know the importance of training. They can't help but know it, because they are bombarded by the message on a regular basis. They get newsletters and magazines form their chief's association, letters from the risk management and insurance companies, memos from the state POST board and from their staff. They read article after article, and see news story upon news story related to the public's and the media's perception of police misconduct. Of course they understand there has to be training, but they have all this other stuff to worry about.
Here's the thing, and it's the thing that many just don't realize: Training is at the root of most of what we in policing do. Training is the answer to most of our questions, and the solution to many of our problems.
As a risk manager, I see officers injured and lawsuits filed on a very frequent basis, and many, if not most, injuries and lawsuits can be laid at the foot of a failure to train. While an actual citation of "failure to train" is not always the central cause of action in litigation, it is often mentioned, and can be seen in the facts of the case, whether it is cited or not.
Much more importantly, even a cursory review of incidents involving officer injuries and deaths will expose a frequent thread of failure to train. Officers do their best, under very difficult circumstances, and usually are successful in getting their jobs done safely. However, when things go wrong, it's often as the result of a lack of knowledge or preparation.
When law enforcement agencies place training low on the priority list, they are setting up a scenario that ultimately will result in a negative outcome. The fact that it hasn’t happened to your agency yet only means that you have been incredibly lucky, or that your time is almost up.
Which are you?
Stay safe, and wear your vest!
