There are a number of police responses to persons with mental illness (PMI) that are designed to make encounters with them less dangerous for everyone involved. These include police and mental health collaborations and police-specific responses. In this post, we will describe these approaches as well as provide additional resources on the various approaches. We will also introduce active threat assessment, integration of this approach into police training can teach officers how to differentiate between threatening and non-threatening individuals and situations

Police tactical units are being increasingly used to address violent crime and homicides in the United States. There are a variety of police tactical units that target specific places and people, ideally so that officers can focus on the most dangerous individuals. Some strategies are proactive and can enhance an officer’s awareness regarding a certain place or person in advance, while other strategies help an officer assess a situation in real-time. Active threat assessment training is one way to enhance police tactical units, as it can be integrated as an additional layer of officer decision-making in terms of focusing on the most dangerous offenders.

The concept of ‘de-escalation’ is becoming more prominent among law enforcement professionals, but the term still means different things to different people. Generally, de-escalation techniques focus on reducing the immediacy of threat in potentially volatile encounters, ideally so that officers can resolve incidents without using force. However, it can sometimes be difficult to know when it is appropriate to de-escalate versus when doing so might be unsafe. Thankfully, threat assessment and other techniques can be utilized to help an officer estimate the risk to his safety. This post outlines the common de-escalation techniques used in law enforcement today and what we know about them.

In this interview with Mike Hodges and Brine Hamilton of the Proactive Security Podcast, Pete Forth and Nathan Meehan of Second Sight discuss the active threat assessment methodology and its application to healthcare security.

Recently, a Second Sight trainee used the active threat assessment techniques to spot people carrying concealed weapons at a peaceful protest. Read this story.

There are a number of training approaches recommended to heal police-community tensions, including procedural justice, implicit bias, de-escalation, and CIT. These approaches involve assessment, decision-making, and communication. In the second of this two-part series, we focus on de-escalation and crisis intervention training.

Second Sight Training Systems is excited to announce that we have been approved as a Preferred Provider by ASIS International. ASIS certified security professionals can to use our courses to meet continuing education requirements for the APP, CPP, PCI, and PSP Security Certifications.

There are a number of training approaches recommended to heal police-community tensions, including procedural justice, implicit bias, de-escalation, and CIT. These approaches involve assessment, decision-making, and communication. In the first of this two-part series, we focus on procedural justice and implicit bias training.

Situational awareness is a key ingredient to keeping you safe. Learn more about the how and the why of personal safety awareness training. Limit your opportunity to be a victim.

In this interview on the Managing Violence podcast, Joe Saunders and Nathan Meehan discuss the origin of active threat assessment, systematic observation, ways of identifying potential threats.

Check out a podcast interview with Second Sight’s Director of R&D about the application of research to practice and our new Situational Awareness for Safety Program.

In this guide, we will describe potential effects and mitigation strategies for law enforcement and security organizations dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Training is more than just a lecture and watching someone complete a task. We should train in ways that allow us to practice our skills. Good training should also assess whether or not we can successfully execute these skills. This is where evaluation comes in.

Online training is not a panacea. It is not a replacement for instructor-led training. But there are distinct benefits, and downsides, to each type of training delivery.

We all know that some trainings are required and “buts in seats” may be the only thing that matters. In other cases, you may want to makes sure your officers learned something. This is why we evaluate. The second level of training evaluation is learning – assessing measurable skills that a trainee takes away from a course.   

Experience matters especially when dealing with stressful situations. Stress inoculation training is an approach that involves exposing trainees to gradually more stressful situations, allowing them to better handle hazardous or dangerous events or people they may face while on duty.

The tenants of instructional design can help you develop more efficient and effective training.

In police threat assessment training, and any form of training that involves interaction with people, it is important that it incorporates the human interaction and safety component associated with an interdiction. This doesn’t necessarily apply to all forms of threat assessment (other than active threat assessment), but is relevant in defensive tactics, verbal communication, or any training that involves police interaction with the public.