Occasionally, such incidents can also lead to the incarceration of police officers and legal liability for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) that have not adequately prepared their officers for critical incidents (e.g., Public Prosecution Service of Canada, 2018).Įxisting research and theoretical knowledge indicate that stress can adversely impact performance, but that training and experience can moderate stress reactivity and improve performance through the appraisal process (e.g., Driskell and Salas, 1996). Such incidents can have tragic consequences, including serious injury or death and strained police–community relations. Video footage of certain police–public encounters highlights deficits in officer performance, including errors in the decision to use lethal force. Under these circumstances, officers are occasionally required to make life-or-death decisions, often in a split-second, to preserve and protect the lives of both the public and themselves ( Artwohl, 2002). ![]() Police officers encounter critical incidents that have the hallmark characteristics of a situation that would cause a physiological stress response: namely – they are unpredictable, potentially uncontrollable, novel, and often involve time pressure ( Sapolsky, 2004 Alison and Crego, 2012 Violanti, 2014). Implications for the objective reasonableness standard, which is used to assess the appropriateness of force in courts of law, are discussed. The findings also highlight that while training may significantly improve outcomes, flawless performance is likely not probable, given the limits of human performance under stress. Our results illustrate the need to critically reflect on police training practices and continue to make evidence-based improvements to training. Level of training and years of police service had differential and complex effects on both performance and lethal force errors. Elevated stress reactivity was a predictor of poorer performance and increased lethal force errors. The average performance rating from the scenario was 59%, with 27% of participants making at least one lethal force error. ![]() Results demonstrated that the scenario produced elevated heart rates (i.e., 150 beats per minute), as well as perceptual and cognitive distortions, such as tunnel vision, commensurate with those observed in naturalistic use of force encounters. The current study assessed the performance of 122 active-duty police officers during a realistic lethal force scenario to examine whether performance was affected by the officer’s level of operational skills training, years of police service, and stress reactivity. Under conditions of physiological stress, officers are sometimes required to make split-second life-or-death decisions, where deficits in performance can have tragic outcomes, including serious injury or death and strained police–community relations. 4Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada.3Police Research Lab, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.2Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottawa, ON, Canada.1Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. ![]() Simon Baldwin 1,2 * Craig Bennell 1 Brittany Blaskovits 1 † Andrew Brown 1 † Bryce Jenkins 1 † Chris Lawrence 3 † Heather McGale 1 † Tori Semple 1 † Judith P.
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