How Police Training Contributes To Avoidable Deaths: Article Analysis

Summary: The Article, How Police Training Contributes to Avoidable Deaths, asserts that a large number of police shootings and uses of force can be attributed to the manner in which police officers are trained. Stoughton (2014) puts this concept into the phrase, “Officers must think beyond the gun belt”. This sentiment is carried throughout the article. Stoughton (2014) starts his article by stating that too many families have been told the news that a family member had been tragically killed by a police officer. Stoughton also shows his knowledge in the field as a former law enforcement officer and current scholar on the subject matter. In the article Stoughton’s attacks some of the themes and statements made to young officers as they go through training and enter the world of law enforcement. This includes the common saying among law enforcement officers, “It is better to be judged by 12 than carried by six. Stoughton (2014) asserts that concepts and statements like this one teaches recruits that every encounter and every individual is a potential threat. Additionally officers are shown extremely violent videos of other officers being beaten and killed after showing a moment of hesitation (Stoughton 2014). Stoughton’s thought is that this classroom training mixed with …show more content…
I think the culture of law enforcement and the way it trains will be slow to accepting any change, but it could be slowly implemented without much notice being taken. For example, our agency just switched to a new style of defensive tactics. As a part of the curriculum it now gets taught to everyone in the agency twice a year with the first portion of the day focusing on verbal de-escalation before having to go hands on. As the lead instructor of our academy’s tactical and patrol response training, I have just this year implemented a course and scenario based training in verbal