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Evaluating Performance of Law Enforcement Personnel during a Stressful Training Scenario
Author(s) -
MEYERHOFF JAMES L.,
NORRIS WILLIAM,
SAVIOLAKIS GEORGE A.,
WOLLERT TERRY,
BURGE BOB,
ATKINS VALERIE,
SPIELBERGER CHARLES
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1314.031
Subject(s) - law enforcement , survivability , anger , applied psychology , coping (psychology) , psychology , fire fighter , computer security , aeronautics , law , computer science , engineering , social psychology , medicine , clinical psychology , political science , environmental health , computer network
A bstract : Police trainees who were ready to graduate from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) volunteered to participate in an exercise designed to evaluate their survivability. In a highly stressful interactive scenario, which included a hostage situation, performance was evaluated for a range of responses, including: shooting judgment and accuracy, communications, and coping with a weapon malfunction. Nineteen percent of subjects shot the hostage, a failure rate that falls in the reported range of friendly fire casualties in military combat. The Spielberger Trait Anger Scale showed an association with shot placement and performance during the gunfight as well as with overall performance scores.