Procedural Justice Training Program (Seattle Police Department)
Axios
Policing
Problems addressed
Low levels of trust in and/or perception of illegitimacy of police agencies
Police abuse and/or lethality
Effectiveness

No Effect

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No Effect

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Life periods served
People of all ages
Where the program was applied
Community (streets or community centers)
Police station or police department
Country of application
United States
Description

This is a procedural justice program to train police officers at a high risk of interacting negatively with civilians. The goal is to reduce the frequency at which police actions are considered unfair or inappropriate.
The training seeks to slow down police officers’ reaction and improve their information processing during encounters with citizens.
The program has two components:
1) Reporting, in which the inappropriate interactions of selected officers are tracked; and
2) Engagement, in which supervisors encourage officers to reflect on their interactions and the mistakes and consequences of those interactions.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed that, after the 6-week follow-up period, officers in the treatment group were statistically less likely to be involved in an incident involving physical force, but no statistically significant differences were observed in the portion of incidents that resulted in an arrest, the number of citizen complaints filed against the officer, or other outcomes [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Owens, E., Weisburd, D., Amendola, K. L. & Alpert, G. P. (2018). Can You Build a Better Cop? Criminology & Public Policy, 17(1), 41–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12337

Information source