Abstract
Using the least amount of necessary and legally justified force establishes the ethical imperative for police to fully exhaust the potential of de-escalation, before they resort to more authoritative approaches and use force. However, de-escalation is complex and has multiple layers, which are academically studied across different disciplines. For de-escalation to be effective in the field, these layers need to be aligned. The authors argue that achieving such an alignment requires police officers to be familiarized not only with the skills and techniques they acquire in de-escalation and communication trainings, but that they also need to understand the factors that underlie de-escalation and determine how and why it works. To this end, this chapter provides an interdisciplinary breakdown of evidence-based, relevant insights. The authors organize them along an easily accessible, teachable, and applicable sequence to achieve the goals of (a) easy access for practitioners in the field, (b) guiding decision-makers in the allocation of resources, and (c) inviting academics to consider knowledge gaps along this practically relevant sequence.
Reviewer: Howard Giles
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Zaiser, B., Staller, M.S., Koerner, S. (2023). De-escalation Fundamentals. In: Staller, M.S., Koerner, S., Zaiser, B. (eds) Police Conflict Management, Volume II. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41100-7_12
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