COPS Training Portal

Changing Perceptions is a video-based simulation in which learners assume the roles of three different law enforcement officers in an interactive movie, make decisions for these officers and experience the consequences of their choices.  The program trains officers on the effect of implicit bias and gives them the information and skills they need to reduce and manage their biases. Additionally, by allowing officers to experience the same encounter from two perspectives (officer and possible suspect) simultaneously, this program provides officers an insight into the biases that some members of the community may harbor toward police and why those biases exist.

The primary aim of this simulation-based program is to define implicit bias, and to dramatize through interactive scenarios that policing based on bias can be unsafe, ineffective, and unjust. The opening video will serve as an introduction to the concept of implicit bias, while the three modules will focus separately on safe, effective, and just policing decisions and behavior.

The learning objectives are:

• Recognize that bias is a normal human attribute—even well-intentioned people have bias
• Articulate the fundamental concepts of the science of human bias
• Describe how unconscious or implicit bias works in the human mind
• Describe the potential impact of bias on officers’ perceptions and behavior
• Articulate the impact biased policing has on community members
• Articulate the impact of biased policing on their law enforcement organizations
• Apply skills for reducing their biases
• Analyze their options with a fair and impartial policing lens

This 3 module course takes an average of 1 hour to complete and the intended audience is law enforcement personnel.

This tuition-free online training was developed by WILL Interactive and was originally supported by cooperative agreement 2016-CK-WX-K015 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Related COPS Resources

Fair and Impartial Policing

For over three decades, the principles of community policing have been a driving force in American law enforcement.  Yet for all of its past success, community policing may never have been as vital to law enforcement and the well being of our communities as it is today.  New Perspectives on Community Policing is a free, web-based training course that examines how change, emerging issues, and threats are necessitating a reinvigorated commitment to the key components of community policing:  community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. 

The course introduces this new perspective on community policing and offers an overview of the dramatic shifts and challenges that are faced by law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. New Perspectives on Community Policing also offers problem-solving tools, examples of successful police and community partnerships, and numerous community-policing resources.

New Perspectives on Community Policing has been developed as a modular online training that will require an absolute minimum of 4 hours to complete. However its technology-enhanced design allows participants to start, stop, and resume the training based on their schedules and the demands of the day. Flexible, interactive, and relevant, the course offers participants an outstanding opportunity to gain new insights on community policing and its role in today's complex world.  It is ideal for all law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, as well as any community-policing stakeholders.

This tuition-free online training was a joint partnership between the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (VCPI) and the Western Community Policing Institute (WCPI), and was originally supported by cooperative agreement 2008-CK-WX-K003 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Related COPS Resources

Answering the Call to Mentor: 21st Century Policing through Youth Engagement
Engaging Police in Immigrant Communities
Gender, Sexuality, and 21st Century Policing: Protecting the Rights of the LGBTQ+ Community
Police Perspectives: Building Trust in a Diverse Nation - No. 1. How to Increase Cultural Understanding
Police Perspectives: Building Trust in a Diverse Nation - No. 2. How to Serve Diverse Communities
Recommendations on Advancing Community Policing in the Pasco Police Department

This 5-part series, Procedural Justice: Roll Call Training for Law Enforcement, was developed by the Center for Public Safety and Justice (CPSJ) at the University of Illinois - Chicago with support from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) through cooperative agreement 2012CKWXK005.

This video series, along with its accompanying Presenter’s Guide, was developed to reinforce internal and external procedural justice concepts. Each scenario/video in the series may be accessed via the COPS Training Portal in two ways: played directly through your logged-in COPS Training Portal user account, and/or downloaded, saved and played offline, directly from your device. Each scenario is meant to be used in a separate roll call training; each roll call training is designed to be approximately 20 minutes in duration.

This roll call training should not be substituted for in-depth internal or external, front-line, supervisor, executive level, civilian staff or community procedural justice training. The roll call series should – over a period of time – reinforce the broader awareness of procedural justice and its core principles, and affirm the importance of utilizing procedural justice as a means of increasing police legitimacy with the public as well as organizational legitimacy with employees. The roll call trainings reinforce how enhancing the public’s perception of police legitimacy increases voluntary community compliance and community support, which may as a result, improve officer and community safety.

Audience: The target audience for the 5-part Procedural Justice Roll Call Training is sworn law enforcement front-line officers who have participated in procedural justice training; preferably the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services approved Procedural Justice for Law Enforcement: Organizational Change through Decision Making and Policy and Procedural Justice for Law Enforcement Front-line Officers.

However, the material is relevant to sworn law enforcement personnel at all organizational levels and could be creatively used as prompts for community dialogues.

Tactical Community Policing for Homeland Security focuses on strengthening the capacity of law enforcement agencies to implement an all-crimes approach, based on community policing principles. The fundamental premise is that terrorism and community policing are both philosophical approaches aimed at influencing civilian populations. Whereas terrorism seeks to inspire fear and coerce civilian populations into submission, community policing aims to preserve order, diminish fear, and build resilience.

Throughout this eLearn course, participants explore the following topics:

• Community Partnerships
• Practical Problem Solving Strategies
• Proactive Prevention, Intervention and Interdiction Strategies
• Values Based Policing in the Climate of Terrorism
• The Process of Intelligence Development

This tuition-free online training was developed by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (VCPI) and was originally supported by cooperative agreement 2013-CK-WX-K010 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Audience: 

This course is ideal for all law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, as well as any community-policing stakeholders.

Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships to Prevent Violent Extremism
Building Stronger, Safer Communities
Engaging Police in Immigrant Communities
Enhancing Community Policing with Immigrant Populations
Innovators 2013: Reducing Crime by Increasing Trust in an Immigrant Community
Uniting Communities Post-9/11: Tactics for Cultivating Community Policing Partnerships with Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslin, and South Asian Communities
Waking in Oak Creek: A Guide for Law Enforcement

In the past two decades, horrific mass shootings have been thrust into public consciousness. Mitigating the effects of these events is the responsibility of those who serve in our communities' public safety organizations. The public expects an effective and swift response to these threats. Research has shown, however, that many of the mass attacks, or active attack events, are over before law enforcement responders arrive on the scene.

Civilians who find themselves embroiled in such an event must be prepared to take immediate action to save their own lives before law enforcement arrives. The average response time for police response to an active attack event is three minutes. Without effective, preplanned response options for civilians at the scene of the attack, many victims can be seriously injured or killed during these three minutes. 

This course was designed in conjunction with Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) to provide first responders and other professionals with a model response program they can deliver to civilians within their communities.

The Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST) program was developed to bring Salt Lake City (Utah) police and community outreach workers together to identify homeless individuals and connect them to community resources. 

The objectives were to encourage police to make referrals to services rather than issue citations and to decrease panhandling by encouraging the public to give money to homeless service providers instead.

In 2012, the Salt Lake City Police Department received an award from the COPS Office to expand the HOST program to fund a public awareness campaign, coordinate strategic planning efforts, and train homeless individuals to assist with outreach efforts.

Primary Audience: The intended audience for this interactive publication is anyone interested in homeless outreach efforts and specific strategies that have been implemented to address this issue.

Authors: Erin B. Worwood, MCJ; Jessica Seawright, BSW; Robert P. Butters, PhD

Original Publication: October 5, 2016

This interactive report is optimized for Chrome and Safari web browsers. There are no audio components.

Ethical Decision Making: Policing with Principled Insight is a thought-provoking eLearn course that explores the practice of decision making and the ethical principles that support effective policing. In one of its most impactful and rewarding endeavors to date, VCPI partnered with the USDOJ, COPS Office to create the Ethical Decision Making: Policing with Principled Insight program. As part of this larger initiative, this course stresses that police ethics are not just an after-thought or a means of discouraging bad behavior. Instead, ethics are a controlling insight that inform and guide police practitioners from an internal, personal capacity.This innovative eLearn course invites participants to join a 2500 year-old conversation on ethical decision making while exploring realistic, modern day challenges faced by policing professionals.

Recognizing that for policing professionals, public trust, integrity, and liability hinge on each and every decision, this is crafted as a concise and relevant course addressing the realities of policing in the 21st century.  Designed with the practitioner in mind, Ethical Decision Making: Policing with Principled Insight includes on-screen text, videos, and narration in a user-friendly eLearn environment that allows participants to start, stop, and resume the training based on their schedules.  Although it requires a minimum of 2 hours of uninterrupted run-time, participants should expect to spend approximately 4 hours completing this dynamic and timely course.

This tuition-free online training was developed by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (VCPI) and was originally supported Cooperative Agreement 2012-Ck-WX-K011 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

COPS Evaluation Brief No. 3: Creating a Culture of Integrity
Crime Prevention Research Review No. 10: Legitimacy in Policing
Racial Reconciliation, Truth-Telling, and Police Legitimacy
"That's Not Fair!" Policing and Perceptions of Fairness
The Case for Procedural Justice: Fairness as a Crime Prevention Tool
The State of Policing in the United States, Volume 1