What Works in Police Training? Applying an Evidence-Informed, General, Ecological Model of Police Training

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10986111221113975
• Author: Tal Jonathan-Zamir,Yael Litmanovitz,Noam Haviv
• Date: 01 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Police Quarterly

2023, Vol. 26(3) 279–306

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10986111221113975

journals.sagepub.com/home/pqx

What Works in Police

Training? Applying an

Evidence-Informed, General,

Ecological Model of Police

Training

Tal Jonathan-Zamir

1,†

, Yael Litmanovitz

1,†

, and

Noam Haviv

2



Abstract

Over the last decade, research on police training showed signif‌icant development.

Nevertheless, the f‌ield was lacking a consistent framework based on the best available

scientif‌ic evidence indicating what should work in police training. The present article

presents such a model, based on Litmanovitz (2016). It provides a succinct description

of the model, its development and importance, and tests the outcome of a procedural

justice (PJ) training module designed based on its principles, within the context of a

quasi-experiment in the National Police College in Israel. Findings show a statistically

signif‌icant effect on recruits’support for PJ, but not on their perceived ability to

exercise PJ. We conclude that the general, ecological training model proposed by

Litmanovitz (2016) shows promise, is useful for the development of evidence-informed

police training interventions, and should be viewed as a starting point for ongoing

elaboration and ref‌inement of our knowledge on police training.

1

Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

2

Ashkelon Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel

†

The f‌irst and second authors contributed equally to the present article.

Corresponding Author:

Tal Jonathan-Zamir, Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus,

Jerusalem 91905, Israel.

Email: tal.jonathan@mail.huji.ac.il

Keywords

police training, procedural justice training, evidence-based policing, quasi-experiment

Across the globe, police agencies invest an immense amount of time and resources in

training their off‌icers. The various training programs are considered the most important

tool police agencies have for reaching the ethical and professional standards expected

of them in democratic societies (Chan et al., 2003;COPS Off‌ice, 2015;Goldstein,

1977;Haberfeld et al., 2011;Manning, 2010;Reiner, 2010), and, accordingly, training

has been treated as a key feature in police reforms that seek to make off‌icers more

effective and fair (e.g., Edwards, 1993;Reiner, 1992). At the same time, for decades,

the body of knowledge on “what works”in police training was thin, and the design of

training interventions was generally not based on scientif‌ic evidence indicating what is

effective in achieving training goals (Neyroud, 2011;NRC, 2004).

Over the last decade, more and more rigorous studies examining the outcomes of

various police training interventions have been published (Bennett et al., 2020;Nagin

& Telep, 2020). At the same time, they have not developed from a consistent theoretical

framework that allows us to consider them jointly as a coherent body of knowledge.

Without such a framework in the background, it is diff‌icult to understand why specif‌ic

programs worked (or did not work), or what specif‌ic elements of the program made it

more (or less) effective (Fraser et al., 2009;Weisburd et al., 2015). As a result, specif‌ic

programs that showed positive outcomes are diff‌icult to replicate, scale-up, or im-

plement in other policing contexts or agencies. Addressing this gap poses a critical

stepping-stone for advancing the design and implementation of effective police training

interventions, as well as for gaining in-depth understanding of the processes underlying

police training more generally.

In a notable endeavor to address this challenge, Litmanovitz (2016) developed a

framework of what should “work”in police training. It was designed based on an

integration of a thorough literature review of the occupational training literature in the

areas of policing, medicine, and education, with a Grounded Theory analysis (Strauss &

Corbin, 1994) of a training model in a specif‌ic police agency –the Israel Police Border

Guard (IPBG). The two sequential phases allowed Litmanovitz (2016) to merge

scientif‌ic knowledge indicating “what works,”with real-world knowledge of “how it

works.”The general, ecological training model (GET)

1

includes three domains -- the

realms in which training operates, which, in turn, house seven mechanisms, which are

the processes inf‌luencing learning in each realm. Altogether, the model illuminates the

main issues one should consider when developing a training intervention in policing,

and the “dos”and “don’ts”in each sphere.

We are unaware of parallel attempts to construct an evidence-informed, general

ecological model of police training. At the same time, and despite the comprehensive

and meticulous process by which the model was developed, it clearly needs to be

applied in the real world, and its outcomes should be examined. Do police training

280 Police Quarterly 26(3)