Why Massachusetts Is Rethinking Police Training

Police academies of the 1960s emphasized military drills and demanded strict compliance with orders, per IACP. Punitive physical training remained common in later decades, too, but has been changing “dramatically” in the last few years, says Jillian Snider, a former New York City police officer who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

She was at the NYC academy 20 years ago. If a trainee got in trouble on a 100-degree, humid summer day, they’d be told to put on their winter jacket, hat and gloves and stand at attention on the roof of the academy, in full sun, for half an hour.

“There’d be people literally fainting. … But their mentality at the time was, ‘if we can push this person and they can make it through, then they can handle any given situation,’” Snider says.

These “toughen-them-up” approaches recognize that police work is stressful. Proponents believe putting trainees under high stress helps prepare them for the stresses and rigors of the job. But, Snider notes, the New York police department academy now recognizes that being able to endure intense heat doesn’t translate into being better able to deal with members of the public.

A better approach to preparing for a stressful job is teaching stress management, says Lorenzo Boyd, Stewart Professor in criminal justice and community policing at the University of New Haven. Teaching breathing techniques to lower heart rates and promoting fitness as a desirable part of a healthy lifestyle — rather than a punishment — can help instill the wellness practices needed for a long career.

Physical fitness challenges should closely align with on-the-job expectations, not be done for tradition or to push recruits to their limits. For example, Snider notes cops are more likely to need to drag a 180lb to 200lb dummy — mimicking an unconscious partner — to safety, rather than leap a 6-foot wall, and some academies have adjusted accordingly.

There are other motives behind academies’ changes: some are becoming less punitive to attract more trainees amid recruitment struggles, Snider says.

In 2013, 34 percent of recruits were trained under curriculums that equally balanced what IACP calls “stress models” — paramilitary-style, high-pressure training that emphasizes structured discipline — with “nonstress models” like classroom instruction. By 2022, that share of academies balancing the two approaches had risen to 60 percent, per the IACP. And the share of recruits subject to only, or primarily, highly stressful experiences fell from 23 percent in 2013 to 5 percent in 2022.