A few years ago I was spending most of my time traveling around visiting police agencies on behalf of insurance pools. For those of you who might not know, because it can be so difficult and expensive for governmental entities to get insurance, many of them band together in "pools" and buy insurance for themselves - sort of a wholesale arrangement.
Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time visiting clients. In fact, I visited several hundred police and sheriff's departments across several states. The idea was to look at what they were doing and make recommendations on ways they could reduce officer injuries and avoid lawsuits. We weren't necessarily the smartest kids on the block, but we were able to get a sense of what was happening in the profession, and share it with our other clients - sort of a clearinghouse of common practices.
Of course, we spent a lot of time looking at their training efforts. Because we knew that the same things that got them hurt also got them sued, we tended to look at use of force and vehicle operations, although we also considered other aspects of their operations.
We found ourselves making recommendations regarding the types of training they were doing, as well as how often they did it. Since the law enforcement profession doesn't really have any hard and fast standards for training frequency, we looked to the police community in general, and to what we saw as common practices. We then told chiefs and sheriffs that they should work to meet the typical standards that many agencies had in place.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Here's the problem - how were we supposed to know that what everyone else was doing was the right thing?
The "Norm"
Consider this: commonly held belief in law enforcement is that we should train and recertify annually with our various use-of-force tools and techniques. In fact, although some departments do additional training when they can, that standard is still the expectation for training in many parts of the country.
Minimum standard for firearms qualification? Annually.
Recertify in defensive tactics? Annually.
Legal update training? Annually.
Retrain with OC or our ECD? Annually.
The question is... Why?
What makes "once a year" the magic number? Why not more often? Or once every two years?
If you gather up a bunch of trainers, and get them discussing the skill levels in their agencies, one of the common threads you'll hear is that there is not enough time to develop officers' skills, and then to maintain them. If you ask this same group how often their people need to train to maintain their motor-skills, it's not likely that any of them will tell you once a year is enough.
If you look to some of the units in our agencies that undertake the higher risk activities, such as your tactical team or your canine unit, you'll find a strong training orientation that is based on a monthly - or sometimes a weekly - training frequency. Operators in these high risk areas believe that to stay safe, and to keep others safer, they need to train frequently. Are they wrong?
Do we honestly believe that we can teach the average officer a new skill, and the cognitive information necessary to use it, and then expect him or her to retain that information for a period of weeks or months, without any sort of retraining and reinforcement?
If we're focused on officer safety, it's hard to believe our people will be able to instantly recall the skills and information they need, especially if its information they don't use frequently. If we're focused on liability, the courts have generally held that we need to be trained, and that our training needs to be adequate. They generally have not held us to a specific amount or frequency of training.
So, how much and how often should we train? Unfortunately, there's no clear answer.
The Goal
Ideally, we need to train as much and as frequently as possible. That presents a problem. We have other stuff to do and we can't peel off every few days for a training session. Our current models for delivering training don't fit our needs. The idea of gathering up a sizable contingent of officers, and putting them all in one place for a day-long class is one that has outlived much of its usefulness.
We need to find ways to get training to officers on their shifts, without pulling the midnight shift people to a day shift training session, where they will be foggy and not at their best. If we want them to learn, we need to offer them information when they are most likely to be able to absorb it.
We need to break up training into smaller, more manageable "bites" that officers can consume more often. After all, many other aspects of life are better managed this way. Multiple small meals, spread throughout the day, are better than one huge, heavy meal. Multiple layers of clothing are better than one heavy coat. Long car trips are more manageable if they are broken up with frequent stops. That's a pattern that we’re used to.
Some of this can be done with videos, shift briefings, and small group sessions. We can also provide training memoranda and article off-prints, as well as other written training materials. Along the way, we need to get creative.
Some Management Decisions
We also need to rethink some of our priorities. While firearms training cannot be ignored, it does not make sense to spend your entire training budget on firearms training, especially if your agency rarely uses deadly force. Keep in mind that almost every use-of-force encounter involves a verbal exchange between officers and subjects. Still, many departments focus much of their training effort on firearms and weapons training and little on verbal management skills.
Remember, what gets you sued also gets you hurt. It stands to reason that it's better to talk than to fight. The further down your continuum you can force your training dollars and resources, the more benefit you'll get from them. Reduce the likelihood of a physical confrontation by teaching your people good verbal management skills, and you'll have fewer officers hurt. You'll also hurt fewer citizens along the way, and that means fewer lawsuits. That's good for everyone!
Stay safe, and wear your vest! (and Buckle Up!)
