NCJ Number
86883
Date Published
1979
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This manual guides the instructor in conducting three types of simulations likely to precipitate urban disorders: a blackout caused by massive electrical failure, a demonstration by a provocative group, and a citywide public employee strike.
Abstract
The workshop for which this manual is provided consists of three exercises for groups of municipal officals, an instructor, and a recorder. Each exercise is a simulated meeting of local government officials confronted with a defined crisis situation. The exercises are intended to dramatize the need for contingency planning, illuminate important elements of a contingency planning process, strengthen participants' crisis response skills, and generate insights about the roles that Federal law enforcement agencies might play in urban crisis planning and response. The instructor's role is to set the group discussions in motion but not to participate in them. The instructor must be sensitive to the flow of the discussion and accordingly adjust the timing of handing out installments. Guidance for the instructor in the 'blackout' exercise covers physical arrangement, introductions, statement of purpose, specific instructions, reading or reviewing time, sequels, and an identification of the issues to be raised in the exercise, including police mobilization policy, police deployment policy, use of force, arrest procedure, prosecution policy, emergency services, and rescue. Issues to be raised in the 'demonstration' exercise include the parade permit, intelligence work, law enforcement strategies, noncoercive strategies, symbolic implications, and emergency services. Issues identified for the 'strike' exercise are sanctions, violence and disorder, maintaining services, sympathy actions, and using police officers and firefighters to staff emergency services.