5

Committee Conclusions

The committee was asked to consider the core knowledge and skills needed for police to promote the rule of law and protect the population and examine the state of evidence on the best mechanisms for acquiring that knowledge and those skills. In undertaking this study, the committee drew on information gathered from two commissioned papers (Herold, 2021; Mazerolle, 2021), a public workshop on police training in the global context, and our collective knowledge.

As discussed in Chapter 2, training is more likely to be successful if it is part of an overall strategy to reform police actions and if steps are taken to remove impediments for applying knowledge and skills from training to police practice (see Box 5-1). Foreign assistance donors should consider the main objectives of specific reform efforts and the steps required to achieve the reform, including the need for new units or leaders, incentive structures, new technologies, partnerships with local community groups, and political support. After essential strategies are determined, the types of training needed to support the reform efforts should be considered.

In conducting its review and determinations of training needs, the committee sought a new vision for policing, one in which police have learned to

think critically about preventing crime as opposed to strictly responding to crime and hunting criminals. A focus on crime prevention requires developing cognitive and decision-making capacity. The committee supports an evidence-based approach to policing where police and management use scientifically derived information to strengthen decision-making and policing tactics and strategies.

The committee reached a consensus on five connected principles of police training that are grounded in an evidence-based approach and that can support the rule of law and the protection of the public. These principles are laid out in Chapter 1 and expanded upon in subsequent chapters. First, training must do no harm. Second, police training must provide specific knowledge and skills to promote the rule of law and protect the population effectively (as discussed in Chapter 3). Third, police training should use effective teaching methods and practices (as discussed in Chapter 4). Fourth, policing training should be continually evaluated to ensure that it produces the desired police practices and behaviors. Fifth, the delivery of training needs to be flexible and contextualized, given the resources, cultures, and capacities of different police agencies that the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs supports.

In the committee’s experience, police generally lack a conceptual framework for understanding the root causes of crime and decision-making, which can impede their ability to protect the population and uphold the rule of law. Greater awareness of criminological theory can help police to understand the causation of crime problems and provide insight into how interventions might disrupt the conditions that create opportunities for crime. The committee believes that if police understand the evidence about what works (as well as what does not), and if they have a sound understanding of criminological theory alongside the mechanisms that cause crime problems then they may have a better chance of using their police powers in ways that are fair and effective. For at least five decades and across the world, criminological research has shown that crime in cities is highly concentrated in certain micro-geographic places with certain people committing most reported crimes, which are committed against some victims far more often than other victims. The fact that crime concentrates is especially important knowledge for police leadership, which can design resource allocation strategies that strike a balance between emergency police responses and preventive approaches to build community safety (see Chapter 3).

Key facts about crime derived from scientific research include the following:

• Crime concentrates in a small fraction of all places: Recognizing this criminological fact means that police can target (and conserve) resources better by focusing their problem-solving attention on places that account for the most crimes and crime harm.
• Crime concentrates at certain times of the day and days of the week: Allocating police to the right places (hot spots) at the right times (hot times) and on the right days (hot days) improves police effectiveness at preventing crime.

• Crime concentrates among few offenders: A large proportion of crime is committed by a small proportion of all offenders who chronically display a wide range of offending behavior, with offenders who create the highest harm often committing fewer crimes than the high-frequency offenders who contribute to less overall harm.
• Youthful offenders are likely to desist over time: The vast majority of juveniles who commit minor offenses desist as they become adults. Police can safely divert from prosecution low-level offending by most young people, since most will stop offending regardless.
• Crime concentrates among repeat victims: Repeat victimization is a pattern by which a small percentage of victims suffers a large percentage of all criminal victimization, and an even greater proportion of all crime harm.

Criminological theories also help police to understand the mechanisms that create crime problems. They offer insight into how interventions might disrupt the conditions that create crime opportunities and can support an officer’s more critical and problem-solving approach to dealing with crime problems. Four key theories of crime causation that are supported by extensive multinational research have substantial relevance to policing:

1. Routine Activities Theory: Crime emerges when a likely offender converges with a suitable crime target in the absence of a capable guardian. Understanding people’s everyday routines and the interaction between these routines and the opportunities for crime at specific places can help officers understand why crime concentrates at certain places and times.
2. General Deterrence Theory: Crime is reduced in populations that see continuing evidence of police presence and capacity to apprehend offenders; crime rises sharply when that capacity is sharply reduced (for example, in police strikes or when police ignore crime-prone places).
3. Residual Deterrence Theory: Short periods of police presence in crime hot spots applied in intermittent and unpredictable ways can lead to longer periods without crime or disorder after police leave, not only at the immediate location of patrol but also in the surrounding vicinity.
4. No Evidence of Immediate Spatial Displacement: Police agencies often argue that by targeting particular places, times, and people within those place and times, that crime will simply “move around the corner” and be displaced. Robust evidence indicates that displacement is not common, and that surrounding areas are more likely to see a diffusion of benefits, when police target specific crime hot spots.

In addition to a knowledge about crime, offending, and victimization, training must also include the extensive knowledge now available from evaluation research in criminology on protecting the public, effective crime preventative approaches, harm reduction, or improving the ability of the police to support the rule of law (for extensive reviews, see NASEM, 2018c and NRC, 2004). There is scientific consensus on several policing approaches that they can be appropriately adjusted to varying policing contexts to reduce crime and improve police-citizen relationships. These findings suggest that the following are effective approaches (see Chapter 3):

• Targeting of high-risk micro-geographic places or “hot spots” of crime, especially using problem-solving approaches;
• Focused deterrence strategies for high-risk offenders;
• Diversion for low-risk and youthful offenders;
• Risk assessment and protection orders to protect domestic violence victims from further abuse; and
• Spatial targeting of high-risk drug offenders within the drug market environment.

Science-based training on the causes and patterns of crime as well as on effective crime prevention approaches can complement ethics-based training on the rule of law and human rights. Training that links both helps to achieve Principle 1, that training should do no harm.

In carrying out evidence-based approaches, police would generally emphasize proactivity as core to preventing crime, as opposed to reactive approaches. Proactive approaches necessitate greater problem-solving and critical thinking to address crime problems and tend to increase the frequency of interactions with the public. Problem-solving aimed at crime prevention requires public participation. Abilities such as building multiagency partnerships, communications skills, and interviewing are also needed to direct offenders and victims to appropriate resources as well as to gather information from the community to address crime hot spots.

A problem-solving approach requires officers to make decisions based on data and, more importantly, on data that are appropriately collected, collated, and analyzed as to be accurate. Frontline officers will need the skills to report data accurately and be able to understand basic crime trends and analyses. Supervisors will need the skills to be able to monitor that data are recorded accurately and to determine trends accurately to direct operations and officer assignments. Management, for appropriate policy development and response, will need the skills to understand trends over time and the significance of results from tracking the before-and-after differences in the effects of police policy changes.

Although training methods may be an integral part of the outcomes of any training content, there is ample reason to believe that training methods themselves require a separate body of evidence. The world of adult learning has become increasingly innovative in the 21st century, with online learning rising rapidly in its use and efficiency. At the same time, interactive methods have become better understood and more acceptable to learners. Approaches to police training have ranged in form, including not only classroom-based lectures and scenario and field training, but also online modules with virtual simulations and also role-play with members of the community.

Police trainings have engaged both fellow police and outside experts as instructors. The characteristics and competencies of training instructors likely influence officers’ learning receptivity and performance outcomes (see Chapter 4). The committee noted from some experiences that receptivity to training can be improved by immersing trainers in local contexts or using local trainers, as well as by designing training in line with local needs and alongside local stakeholders. Further, the dosage (time spent on training and any re-training) has varied by content and context (including variations in the available resources). Assessing these methods of instruction is just as important as examining the effects of content in an effort to better understand which approach works best for what purpose and in which contexts.

While rigorous evaluations of police training are becoming more commonplace, the committee was not able to draw strong conclusions about which methods are most effective for particular training topics given the few existing evaluations of comparing methods for police training.

Many of the most popular and frequently used police training programs remain unevaluated. Recent examples include de-escalation training (Engel et al., 2020) and implicit bias training (Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing, 2021b; Spencer et al., 2016), both of which have been widely adopted following demands by community leaders and residents, despite lacking strong evaluation evidence that the training will change officer behaviors and lead to the outcomes sought. Rigorous evaluations of police training require multiple assessments, examining whether participants have understood and remember the training, whether they have internalized the material in ways that reflect how they think about themselves as police officers and their duties, and whether the training had an effect on skill development or changed behavior (e.g., do police effectively use the tactics, resources or knowledge from training and have they been implemented regularly in practice?).

Additionally, in line with Principle 1 that training should do no harm, evaluations of police training should examine the potential of harmful effects on both the community and police themselves (Anderson and Burris, 2017; Sparrow, 2008). Well-intentioned policing for crime reduction can result in unwanted community consequences that ultimately outweigh any benefits (see Tankebe, 2020, for an example of counter-terrorism policing interventions that likely encourage radicalization). Assessments of police training should take a holistic view of the impact of police training and ensure that training evaluations test for unwanted and potentially negative effects on the community and officers themselves.

While many training assessments often test participants’ recall and understanding, the absence of rigorous evaluation on the impacts of training on actual officer behaviors in the field leaves critical questions unanswered. Ideally, rigorous evaluations of police training outcomes occur before widespread promotion and implementation of specific training programs; however, it is possible to conduct an evaluation in concert with implementation, learn from assessments, and make improvements to training.

Such research can be supported locally. Supporting locally appropriate research and development of content can take many forms, including consultations with major institutions (national, regional, or local) about

the content, context, goals, and sustainability of each training program. Moreover, foreign assistance donors might be well positioned to foster collaboration and partnerships between universities and police academies to promote ongoing collaboration and sharing of lessons learned and good practice across institutions.