Evaluation of the police operational tactical procedures for reducing officer injuries resulting from physical interventions in problematic arrests. The case of the Municipal Police of Cádiz (Spain)

Abstract

Objectives: This paper describes some operational tactical procedures (OTP) and discusses the results of a 14-year-long study, spanning the period 2003-2016, conducted by the Municipal Police of Cádiz, Spain, which comprised 3 time periods: 2003-2006, when the officers were trained in traditional policing procedures; 2007-2013, when the officers were taught an innovative set of OTP in the form of a basic set of self-defense and arrest mechanisms, different from the traditional policing procedures that rely on martial arts and combat sports; and finally 2014-2016, when the OTP training was discontinued. The aim of this study was to improve policing and reduce officer injuries resulting from interventions in controversial or violent situations, such as problematic arrests. Material and Methods: The study involved 162 police officers and commanders of the Municipal Police of Cádiz, who were in street duty for their first time. There were 8 females and 154 males aged 24-55 years. Three OTP stages are shown as examples. Results: Based on the analysis of "training hours" and "physical interventions in problematic arrests," the results were: 1) the number of sick leaves in the police was identical according to the number of arrests, and 2) data on sick leaves show remarkable differences among the 3 periods under analysis. Conclusions: The OTP-based training substantially reduced officer sick leaves. The overall reduction in sick leaves in the period 2007-2013 was observed that cannot be ascribed to a decrease in criminal acts, and hence in police physical interventions.

Studies on martial arts, fights and sports combat with police: a systematic review

“…Only five original studies were found, which was not expected. Our main findings are that all studies analyzed how MA/F/CS can help police officers in carrying out their duties even in stressful situations (RENDEN et al, 2015;RENDEN et al, 2015a;TORRES, 2018;STALLER et al, 2017) and how its practice can prevent injuries and reduce medical certificates (JIMÉNEZ et al, 2020). Figure 1 illustrates the main findings of this study.…”

“…For Irving, Orr and Pope (2019), police officers must be conditioned to carry out their tasks. Another important aspect of the practice of MA/F/CS in police officers is the reduction of injuries during work and medical leaves (JIMÉNEZ et al, 2020). The decrease in injuries by these police officers may be because the techniques learned in MA/F/CS have the effect of preventing injuries caused by everyday situations (for example, falling) (BOGUSZEWSKI et al ., 2015).…”

A Multidisciplinary Vision of the Criminal, Social and Occupational Risk Consequences of the Use of Police Force

“…It should not be forgotten that over the last few years new tools or technologies have been incorporated to police intervention equipment (conducted energy devices -DEC-or pepper sprays). Although their use has caused a great deal of public outrage and widespread media coverage, it has been overlooked that the problems arising from their use were often attributable to specific circumstances such as positional asphyxia, pre-existing diseases or substance abuse (MacDonald, 2009) [23].…”

Police Ergonomic Parameters as a Method to Evaluate the Training at Cadiz Public Security School on the Use of Police Force of Candidates to Become Local Police Officers in Andalucía.

“…Police officers on patrol face different challenging contexts from a mental, social and physical point of view that can affect their life and health [7][8][9]. These concerns encouraged Vera-Jiménez [10] to conduct a local-scale study in Cádiz, a town in southern Spain with a population of slightly over 100,000 inhabitants. The study consisted on providing a group of municipal police officers with specific training based on OTP procedures [11,12].…”

“…It could be concluded that thanks to the employment of these procedures, the sick leaves of the officers were substantially reduced during the training period and for a certain period right after the training had been completed with respect to other periods when no OTP education had been provided. Unlike the currently endorsed classical police training methods, which are based on military instruction, martial arts and other fight and combat sports (MA/F/CS), OTP procedures have been developed in contrast to classical police training [13] for two reasons: a) The harm caused to the concerned citizens when subjected to Physical Intervention Techniques (PITs) [10,14] and b) The high risk of injury for the police officers when performing such PITs [10,12,15]. Thus, in Vera-Jiménez' study [10] an anatomical map was already designed to indicate the areas of the human body of the citizens for which PITs were either recommended or forbidden.…”