NBR Research Study

In partnership with Professor Ed Maguire of ASU’s School of Criminology and Professor Bradley Bartos of the UofA’s School of Government and Public Policy, NBR has organized a first-ever-of-its-kind academic peer-reviewed study to assess the effectiveness of continued defensive tactic and de-escalation training on law enforcement Use of Force outcomes (including officer and civilian injuries) and officer wellness (physical and mental health).

No one has ever studied UOF and Officer wellness before AND no one has ever done a study utilizing 4 different police departments of varying sizes and jurisdictions. Tucson PD, South Tucson PD, UofA PD, and Sahuarita PD.

Both research professors have extensive experience researching and publishing research connected to policing and public policy.

The study will be 1 year in duration and can start as soon as departments are ready.

The study will require a participation and control group of officers from each participating department. The participation group will be the officers volunteering to participate in the NBR classes. The control group will be a comparable set of officers with similar characteristics (age and experience) who do NOT participate in the NBR classes.

Then at the end of the year, the research team will compare the officers who are training with NBR and their data sets to those comparable officers who were not.

For example, if a department has 5 officers interested in doing the study it will need to share data on 10 total officers – 5 participants and 5 non-participants.

For the full year all participating officers will be expected to come to at least one NBR class a week and fill out the officer wellness survey two (possibly three) times – at the beginning and end of their year of training (and maybe the middle). Non-participant officers will only be asked to fill out the survey instrument.

The research professors have put together a survey instrument with questions from the NIH (National Institute of Health) and the VA meant to effectively measure officer confidence, experience, and overall mental health (primarily sleep, anxiety, and PTSD-related symptoms).

**As a perk/incentive the research professors have offered to crunch the numbers for any participating departments on as many of their officers interested in taking the wellness survey as they want. What this means is that any participating department, even if you only have a few officers participating in the full study, can disseminate the wellness survey to your entire staff and receive the collated data results from the research team. An incredible way to get a free look at your department’s overall officer wellness!**

Participating Departments will be required to enter into a DUA (Data Use Agreement) with ASU and NBR. This agreement will authorize ASU to receive the participating officers’ UOF data and wellness survey data. It will clarify, and hold ASU responsible for, all data protection and anonymization protocols for the study.

ALL participant data will be made anonymous and temporarily stored securely on special private servers to protect all department and department personal data.

The training is free and the normal NBR membership fee of $300 a year per officer is being donated by private philanthropic donors. The research professors are generously donating their time to this effort. NBR is a nonprofit and this enables us to provide this training for as minimal a cost as possible and bring to bear the vast resources of the Tucson incredible community.

Once the study is complete every participating department will receive all the data on its officers and be mentioned in the formal study publication for participating in this valuable research and spearheading the search for knowledge that is vital for movement and change on the issues facing officers and communities today.

We look forward to working together to keep your officers and our community healthy and safe.

Practice makes Progress. Practice makes Patience. Practice makes Peace.

Relevant Contact Info:

Professor Ed Maguire (ASU)
edmaguire@asu.edu

Professor Bradley Bartos (UofA)
bartos@arizona.edu