There has been a lot of emphasis on building trust and legitimacy in policing over the years. With some arguing that the public recognizes legitimacy only when they believe the police are acting in a “procedurally just” way. And others explaining that people are more likely to obey the police when they believe that police...Read More
Within hours of publishing The 21-foot “Rule” is Back in the News, readers started asking us to look at Wilson v. Prince George’s County, Maryland.1 Apparently, this 4th Circuit Court of Appeals case has inspired policy revisions, training updates, and questions as to the relevance of the 21-foot principle. I read the case and immediately...Read More
Yes. The 21-foot “rule” is back in the news. And if we’ve been doing our job as police trainers, most of you will be thinking, “It’s not a rule! It’s simply the principle that an average person can sprint 21 feet in roughly 1.5 seconds. Incidentally, that’s about the same time it takes an officer...Read More
NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo was fired. And if you believed that Officer Pantaleo brutally choked Eric Garner to death for nothing more than selling cigarettes, then the firing came as welcome news—a small but hard-fought move toward justice. Hard-fought because, even though cellphone videos show Officer Pantaleo’s arm around the neck of Mr. Garner, the...Read More
American Police are not systematically engaged in racially biased shootings. There is no epidemic of police shooting unarmed citizens, of any race. And, errors in police deadly force decision making (cases in which police shoot unarmed, non-attacking citizens) occur at a rate of about one in a million. And realistically, it’s probably much lower than...Read More
As the case of Estate of Jaime Ceballos v. Husk,[i] winds its way through the courts, the concepts of containment and de-escalation are once again being discussed by police professionals. In the Ceballos case, officers responded to a high-priority disturbance involving a man “with two bats and acting crazy.” After parking several houses away, officers...Read More
The Force Science Institute joins the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in their support for the FBI’s National Use-of-Force Data Collection. Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director and principle researcher for the Force Science Institute, had this to say: The foundation of any profession is the unique body of information possessed and utilized by...Read More
Axon, a public safety tech company, promises to radically improve crisis response training by incorporating virtual reality into the classroom. In a pilot program, Axon is using video-game technology that allows officers to virtually experience police interactions through the lens of a crisis-involved subject. Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute and...Read More
Training and Safety: Potentially Lethal Blue-on-Blue Encounters In 2010, a New York State Task Force was established to examine police-on-police shootings and to propose ways to reduce the frequency and danger of those high-risk confrontations. As a Task Force advisor, Dr. William Lewinski, Executive Director of the Force Science Institute, highlighted the behavioral science concepts...Read More
After penning nearly 400 Force Science News articles, long-time editor in chief, Charles Remsberg, has retired. Although Mr. Remsberg is no longer a formal member of the Force Science team, the Remsberg classroom, located in the Force Science Institute’s Chicago office, will continue to commemorate his immeasurable contributions. Many of you know Mr. Remsberg and...Read More
