Overview
In recent years, de-escalation training has become a key approach in law enforcement, providing officers with tactics, skills, and tools to better manage interactions with the public. This focus reflects growing community and law enforcement interest in resolving conflicts and handling challenging, often emotionally charged interactions with members of the public more effectively than in the past, particularly when encountering individuals in crisis. Proponents of de-escalation training argue that it equips officers with enhanced skills to resolve conflicts in highly confrontational situations without the use of force or less severe force (Oliva et al., 2010). Others, however, have raised concerns about the use of de-escalation tactics, suggesting that the training increases officers’ risk of injury by encouraging slower and less effective responses to potentially volatile situations than the operational responses of traditional policing (Blake, 2017; Jackman, 2016a; Zaiser et al., 2023).
Despite widespread calls for police de‑escalation training after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the renewed demands that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, there was still little evidence that this training was effective. A multidisciplinary systematic review in 2020 identified 64 evaluations of de‑escalation training across professions, primarily in nursing and psychiatry, yet the review found no evaluations involving law enforcement or other criminal justice practitioners (Engel et al., 2020a). In short, nothing was known systematically about the effectiveness of police de-escalation training. Only in the past five years have de-escalation training evaluations begun to accumulate, building a foundation for what is known about training efficacy and effectiveness.
Most recently, debates over policing practices and training have increasingly mirrored broader political divisions about how public safety should be delivered and achieved. Some stakeholders favor more assertive, enforcement‑oriented tactics, viewing them as necessary to deter crime, respond to public concern about disorder, and support officer authority. Others promote approaches designed to defuse encounters, such as de‑escalation and crisis intervention, arguing that these strategies can reduce the likelihood of force, improve safety outcomes for both subjects and officers, and strengthen community trust. These differing perspectives shape legislative priorities, funding decisions, and agency‑level guidance, creating variability in how policing policies and training programs are adopted and implemented across jurisdictions. As a result, policymakers face growing pressure to balance demands for immediate crime control with longer‑term goals related to police accountability, legitimacy, and risk reduction.
In the post-2020 policing landscape, a multifaceted picture is emerging regarding law enforcement agencies’ attempts to institutionalize de-escalation training and practices in their daily operations, and the limited evidence available to support these efforts. We begin this policy brief by describing the lack of clarity regarding what the term “de-escalation” means in policing and reviewing the similarities and differences in the definition across professional law enforcement organizations, federal agencies, and researchers. Next, we consider the evolution of agency use of force policies and highlight the growing integration of de‑escalation into formal policy. We then turn to a discussion of the federal investments and other funding available to expand and evaluate de-escalation training. Thereafter, we provide an updated review of the available evaluation research on de‑escalation training in which we highlight what is known, what remains uncertain, and which training programs show evidence of impact. Finally, we consider the implications for future research, along with a discussion of the implications and call to action for law enforcement practitioners. We conclude with practical policy priorities for strengthening de‑escalation training, improving training evaluations, and building the institutional foundation needed to support safer police–public encounters.
