NCJ Number
222973
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 56 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2008 Pages: 22-24
Date Published
April 2008
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This first of a two-part series focuses on the importance of teaching police officers' family members about potential safety risks due to being in the family of a police officer, as well as security strategies and techniques they should use.
Abstract
The training of police family members should, if at all possible, be offered by the employing law enforcement agency; however, it cannot be mandated. Adult family members or significant others should be encouraged to attend the training by indicating to them its importance. The curriculum for personal safety could be modified from a curriculum on personal safety developed for the general public. An assigned trainer could also do the research required to develop a curriculum for the individual agency. One curriculum could be developed for adult family members and another for children. The latter should be tailored to various age groups. One officer interviewed for this article believes that most law enforcement agencies have neither the time nor the funding to train family members of police officers. If this is the case, individual officers then become responsible for providing personal-safety training to their own family members. Agencies could aid officers in this task by developing a document on the "does and don'ts of personal safety for the family members." An agency might also provide an online or computer-based course on personal safety that would be available to officers' family members.