SITE SPOTLIGHT: Tempe, Arizona - The Design, Delivery, and Evaluation of a Police De-escalation Training Program

De-escalation training has emerged as a strategy that many believe can reduce the use of unlawful and unnecessary force by police officers. Despite de-escalation’s rapid adoption in policing, its evidence base is both limited and mixed. As a result, key questions about its impact remain unanswered. In 2017, the Tempe, Arizona Police Department (TPD) and researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) received funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) to design, deliver, and evaluate a de-escalation training program. DESIGN The Tempe SPI team customized its own training.

This SPI Spotlight publication highlights the development, implementation, and evaluation of Tempe's efforts and provides a checklist of issues to consider for fellow agencies considering similar programs. 

The Tempe team devoted 18 months to curriculum development, centered on three activities:

• Sending officers to attend two dozen different de-escalation trainings to hand-pick what would work for Tempe.
• Identifying and learning from “top de-escalators” in TPD.
• Conducting a departmentwide survey to gather perspectives about de-escalation from all officers.

The SPI team collated information from these activities and worked with curriculum developers to create the training content.

Read the Tempe site spotlight here.

Click here to learn more about the Tempe SPI profile on the SPI website including their full final report and a podcast on findings.

#ICYMI: Introduction to the Bureau of Justice Assistance Performance Measures and Reporting Webinar

On December 5, 2024, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, held this training to provide an overview of performance measure reporting for BJA funded awards. The training discusses the purpose and benefits of performance management, BJA’s requirements for collecting and sharing performance data, reporting timelines and systems, and where to find helpful resources to assist with reporting.

The speakers included:

• Sara Debus-Sherrill, Performance Management Team, BJA
• Gabriela Castellanos, Performance Management Team, BJA
• Eric Smith, Planning, Performance Management Team, BJA

The webinar recording can be found here.

A PDF of the webinar presentation slides can be found here and the PDF for the transcript can be found here.

In 2021 the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) launched a comprehensive national initiative to prevent youth hate crimes and identity-based bullying. Operating from a youth-based lens that focuses on prevention and early intervention, OJJDP is taking a multipronged approach through this initiative to:

• Increase awareness of youth hate crimes and bias-based bullying.
• Identify best practices and evidence-based strategies to build protective factors in youth and help youth resist and disengage from extremist hate groups.
• Ensure youth have a voice on the topic of hate crime and an opportunity for partners to work meaningfully with and for young people.
• Provide grantees, interested communities, and the field at large tools to change the attitude and behavior of young hate-crime offenders and at-risk youth.

The initiative includes national youth roundtables, the development of a youth-hate crime prevention curriculum, multiple virtual symposium, and a series of webinars and micro-learnings.

Access to the Youth Hate Crime and Identity-based Bullying Prevention Curriculum can be found here.

Past webinars and resource links can be accessed here.

This project was supported by Grant No.15PBJA-23-GK-05522-JAGP, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.