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Purpose – This paper examines potential correlates of the effectiveness of oleoresin capsicum (OC) or pepper spray and police officer satisfaction with its performance during use‐of‐force encounters. Design/methodology/approach – Based on surveys completed by police officers, superior officers, and substitute prosecutors, data on nearly 800 uses of OC by Dutch police forces occurring between June 1, 2001 and December 31, 2002 were obtained. Ordered and generalized ordered logistic regressions are used for the analysis. Findings – The paper shows that although OC was generally effective, it was less effective on suspects under the influence of drugs, violent suspects, minority suspects, and suspects who were warned before being exposed to OC. Officers with more job experience reported OC as being more effective than officers with less experience. OC reduced aggressiveness among suspects already aggressive, but it induced aggression among initially non‐aggressive subjects. The vast majority of officers were satisfied with OC's performance during the study period, although ratings were affected by its ability to ease arrests, incapacitate suspects, and reduce suspect aggressiveness. Research limitations/implications – The OC incidents on which the analysis is based are a subset of all actual uses, and thus may not be representative. Several of the regressors are based on officer perception, and may be subject to measurement error. Practical implications – The findings in this paper have implications for police policy, practice, and training, and officer and suspect safety. Originality/value – This is one of very few studies to use multiple‐regression to examine correlates of OC effectiveness and officer satisfaction, and it expands upon the prior literature by including additional measures of OC performance. The results should be of value to law enforcement agencies and officers using OC, and those considering its adoption.

In recent years police departments have responded to increasing numbers of incidents involving mentally disturbed people. Data for this study were drawn from a survey of 90 officers in a special unit mandated to respond to such situations and from their detailed descriptions of 90 specific incidents. Explores the types of incidents, their relative frequency, the characteristics of such incidents, and especially police tactics considered to be effective or ineffective. Discusses the findings in terms of police department organizational structure as well as individual officers’ beliefs about the mentally disturbed and tactical choices.

To provide readers with some basic information about the use of impact munitions in modern American police work.

The paper identifies various sorts of impact munitions and places key findings from previous studies of these devices in a broader historical context of police force options.

Impact munitions are an increasingly popular feature of contemporary American policing that rarely lead to serious injury, but can, under certain circumstances, cause fatal injuries.

The paper provides interested academics and professional with information about an increasingly popular police force option.

This article investigates the effectiveness of pepper spray as a means of aiding arrest. The authors aim to provide a more rigorous study than has previously been achieved. Data from the Baltimore County Police Department have been used in this analysis. The evaluation undertaken has taken into account the “effective‐ineffective” dichotomy of the incapacitating effects of pepper spray as well as whether those being arrested were drunk, under the influence of drugs or mentally disturbed. Five variables of age, weight, height, race and sex were also recorded, the latter three having little or no effect. The overall conclusion which is drawn is that using pepper spray eases arrest in the majority of instances. The conclusions drawn leave the way open for further detailed analysis of the use of the spray to ease arrest.

Children do not come to school barefoot any more: but they might take a few days off while their only shoes are mended, and there are still the delinquents whose court appearances eventually take them away from school altogether, the children from homes where the walls stream in winter and crawl with bugs in summer, reducing them to permanent ill‐health, and those whose home circumstances are so emotionally disturbed that the wonder is not that they have fits of violence but that they ever behave normally.

A typology of suicide by police was created by separating 143 such incidents from a database of 174 police shooting incidents. The 143 incidents were found to consist of three main categories: Direct Confrontations, in which suicidal subjects instigated attacks on police, Disturbed Interventions, in which potentially suicidal subjects took advantage of police intervention, and Criminal Interventions, in which subjects preferred death to submission. These three categories were then subdivided into nine types. Two judges obtained a reliability coefficient of 0.87 for distinguishing suicide by cop, and 0.58 for placement into the nine types. Meaningful distinctions among the types were found on three variables: subject age, real danger, and lethality.

This paper sets out to encompass a comparative analysis of news reports and official police records of TASER deployments from 2002 to 2005.

The methodology involves a content analysis of all LexisNexis and New York Times articles involving police use of the TASER during the study period (n = 353). Regional (New York Times) and national (LexisNexis) news reports describing police use of the TASER are compared with police reports of all TASER deployments by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during the same timeframe (n = 375).

Descriptive statistics and logistic regression are used to compare the data sources with respect to: the circumstances in which the weapon is deployed; the characteristics of the suspects involved in the TASER incidents; and the significant predictors of continued suspect resistance and repeated use of the TASER by an officer.

The paper examines official police records on TASER deployments from one police agency. This limits the ability to generalize the research findings to other police agencies that have adopted different practices and policies regulating the deployment of CEDs. Additionally, the content analysis includes only articles in the mainstream print media.

The paper concludes with a discussion about some myths associated with news reports on police use of the TASER, and their potential impact on both public perception and police practices.

To date, research has not systematically compared media representations of the TASER with official reports on police deployments of the weapon. That is the focus of this paper.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between simulation training and police officers' ability to think creatively in crises.

This quantitative study used instructional design principles including aspects of Cognitive Load Theory to explore the cognitive load and creative thinking of police officers training with a MILO Range use-of-force simulator.

When provided with scenarios requiring de-escalation of emotionally disturbed persons, and when encouraged to be creative or innovative in their approach to de-escalate, officers were observed being more creative after experiencing a second simulation with the same scenario; however, multiple repetitions of similar scenarios did not result in an innovative response.

The results of this study suggest that cognitive load could be affected by changing the manner in which the officers train in simulation. When a simulator curriculum is designed with the incorporation of cognitive load theory, there is potential to foster creative thinking in a situation where de-escalation is the goal.

Instructional design principles, consideration of cognitive load and creative problem-solving are nontraditional methods in the law enforcement field and in use-of-force training.

Police in England and Wales are empowered, under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (s136), to detain individuals thought to be a danger to themselves or to others. Use of this authority is widespread, but varies across districts and attracts controversy because of inconsistent application and the fact that it requires police to make judgements about mental health. The purpose of this paper is to examine police attitudes to and criteria for using s136.

The authors conducted focus groups with 30 officers in urban and rural areas of three different regions across England and Wales. Group interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using open and axial coding.

Use of s136 authority has major implications for police work; liaison with mental health services is seen as desirable but often ineffective due to resource constraints and the latter's lack of availability. The decision to invoke s136 depends on social context and other particulars of individual cases.

Although the findings have limitations with respect to generalisability across the whole of the UK, there are patterns of responses which have major implications for policy recommendations.

Police decisions to apply s136 reflect an implicit values-based classification of and response to emotionally disturbed behaviour, in light of available institutional and social supports.

Tasked primarily with protecting the public and keeping the peace, police “diagnoses” of risk often contrast with that of mental health professionals.

A highly original piece of research which has attracted further funding from BA/Leverhulme.

In the 1970s, the United States Congress enacted two statutes that have had dramatic and far‐reaching effects on the education of handicapped children by public schools. These two laws, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Education For All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (known as Public Law 94–142), have required local public school agencies to provide new eductional programs for thousands of handicapped children not previously served by the public schools. Counselors, principals, and teachers were quickly informed of the law's requirements and willingly began the task of main‐streaming and assimilating these children into various curricula. Their physical needs were attended to rapidly; their societal and emotional needs, unfortunately, lagged behind. Within the past seven years, there has been an increase in books, articles, and films specifically addressed to counseling the handicapped. Unlike past literature which focused only on the vocational aspect of rehabilitation counseling, current writing emphasizes personal counseling meant to assist a disabled child to participate fully in the problems and joys of daily living.