Improving police officer and justice personnel attitudes and de-escalation skills: A pilot study of Policing the Teen Brain

Abstract

This pilot study assessed whether police officers and juvenile justice personnel reported improved attitudes toward youth and knowledge about de-escalation skills after attending Policing the Teen Brain, a training created to prevent arrests by improving officer-youth interactions. Pre- and post-intervention surveys asked about participant attitudes toward adolescents, adolescence as a stressful stage, and punishing youth in the justice system. Among the 232 participants, paired sample t-tests indicated significant differences between mean pre- and post-survey responses on nearly all survey subscales. A hierarchical regression model significantly predicted improvement in knowledge, with educated, female participants most likely to improve knowledge of de-escalation skills.