Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In the wake of a string of high-profile fatal police shootings in recent years, one often proposed solution to reduce excessive use of force by police is a change in the way police officers are trained. This paper explores the impact of a non-stress oriented training model that some police academies have adopted to overcome the problem of policing violence, as well as the degree to which this alternative method may interact with some contextual factors that previous research suggests influence police-citizen interactions. Results from OLS analyses of 133 middle- to large-sized municipal police departments in 2013 suggest that non-stress training is positively associated with desirable policing outcomes, particularly in those departments recruits trained under such regimes make up a larger portion of the force.