A first of its kind study by University of Cincinnati criminal justice researchers shows that de-escalation training in police departments can make police encounters with the public safer for everyone.
"Despite widespread promotion and proliferation of de-escalation trainings, until now, no research had empirically demonstrated that these trainings reduce use of force in the field," says the study's lead author Robin Engel, a professor in UC's School of Criminal Justice who has been researching policing strategies for over two decades.
The study, which appears in the American Society of Criminology's flagship journal Criminology & Public Policy, took place in collaboration with the Louisville, Kentucky, Metro Police Department.
According to the research, these significant reductions were larger than any changes in the Louisville police department arrest patterns during the same period.
