How role-playing helps police do their job without firing their guns
How role-playing helps police do their job without firing their guns
How role-playing helps police do their job without firing their guns
December 12, 2021
By Caren Chesler
Summary
Choose your plan "The officers did feel the training prevented them from using deadly force," Sgt. Joseph Cupo, who oversees training for the Inglewood Police Department, said of the June 2020 incident, weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis launched a national conversation on public safety.
"Giving police officers the ability to practice these scenarios, particularly when they're very young in their careers, is really important," said Rashawn Ray, a sociology professor who heads up the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland at College Park.
She'd been asked to find ways to improve accountability in the campus police department at her university, where an officer had recently shot an unarmed Black man during a traffic stop.
The Camden County Police Department sometimes has officers wear heart monitors while they train in de-escalation and conflict resolution, and supervisors keep tabs on whether the officers' voices become louder or crack from anxiety, how they move their bodies, what they're doing with their hands and whether they're perspiring.
Rashawn Ray, a sociology professor, said officers who have reviewed the system at U-Md. found it "Slightly more realistic" than other training simulations they have seen.
The question is, which technology gives the most realistic experience? Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, touts the model that group created, which is called Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics and uses live actors who respond to the officers in the moment.
In Axon's virtual-reality scenarios, for example, officers can act as a person with autism or schizophrenia interacting with police, and then switch back to the officer's role.
Reference
Chesler, C. (2021, December 12). How role-playing helps police do their job without firing their guns. Retrieved February 10, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/12/12/role-play-police-shootings/