DefenseLab

From Force Science News #168

(clicca qui per la traduzione automatica in Italiano)

New survey exposes “disturbing” shortcomings in firearms training

A “national snapshot” of in-service firearms training for municipal and county LEOs raises grave “concerns about how prepared many police officers are” for winning life-threatening encounters, according to a new report from a respected university researcher.

The report also highlights post-shooting practices in many agencies that are hampering trainers’ efforts to improve their programs.

After surveying more than 300 local-level departments, Dr. Gregory Morrison, a former officer and firearms instructor who’s now an associate CJ professor at Indiana’s Ball State University, concludes that “some findings are encouraging, but others appear likely to have serious implications” regarding officer and public safety, the public’s perception of police accountability, and the toll taken “in lives, serious injuries, disabilities, and civil litigation.”

Among the “disturbing” shortcomings in training documented by his unique study:

• Only a small minority of departments includes trainers in OIS investigations or provides them feedback about deadly street confrontations that might be useful in evaluating and enhancing the effectiveness of their teaching curricula and methods;
• In terms of time allocation, “many departments still heavily emphasize requalifying over vital handgun/deadly force training” that introduces new skills and improves existing ones;
• Despite their “vital role,” nearly 40% of agencies do not require firearms instructors to take refresher training once they have been certified;
• Larger departments, which statistically have greater exposure to armed encounters, tend to require fewer firearms training and/or requalifying sessions per year;
• Officers on some agencies are able to pass requalification tests even though many of their shots miss the target entirely, and those who fail to qualify may be allowed to re-shoot until they squeak by, “sometimes without diagnostic and corrective intervention.”
• On whole, “the overarching characteristic” of in-service firearms training is the “wide latitude exercised by departments”–essentially a jumble of inconsistent standards and instructional modalities that too often works to the detriment of officers, agencies, and the communities they serve.

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POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, Morrison notes, there have been “significant improvements in the scope and depth of deadly force training.” His survey indicates that “several general characteristics associated with officer-involved shootings have become relatively common elements to handgun training: dim light, officer movement while firing, multiple targets, and moving targets.”

Also “most departments have introduced some form of scenario training,” in part in response to 3 landmark Supreme Court decisions (Tennessee v. Garner, Graham v. Connor, and Canton v. Harris). The formats employed include role-playing exercises with marking cartridges, live-fire range training, and computer-based, projected-image technology.

The devil, however, is in the details of just what these “relatively new dimensions to police handgun training” actually consist of.

[...]

SCENARIO SHORTFALL. For instance, more than one-third of departments surveyed exposed officers to no more than 2 scenarios per year during in-service training, while roughly 60% provided a scant 4 or fewer. “Nearly 1 in 5 departments either provided none or only 1 scenario during the typical year,” Morrison reports.

Among agencies using computerized systems, one involved its officers in a single scenario every 2 years. The top exposure was 20 scenarios per officer per year, reported by just 1 department.

“If departments believe that scenario training can improve performance, they have to do enough of it to actually make a difference,” Morrison says. “Exposure to 1 or 2 scenarios a year is such a small part of an officer’s experience that it can’t be expected to have a substantial impact on field performance.”

[...]

2. “The concept of being ‘qualified’ must be revisited, because it should reflect a full array of competencies that officers need to successfully perform in high-risk encounters,” not just “narrow measures of marksmanship and limited aspects to gun-handling.” Traditional rote requalification is “unacceptable given heightened expectations about use of deadly force, the introduction of new technologies in weaponry and in training, and the growth of accountability.”