Why Cop’s Don’t Train-A Study
Investigations On Why Police
Officers Avoid
Jiu Jitsu and Use of Force Training
Disclaimer: This study was conducted over an 11-month period (2019) that included 3
surveys (1120 officers) and interaction/discussion (430 officers) that were
“non-training” (total of 1550 police officers). For the purpose of this study,
a non-training officer was one that
was not participating in Jiu Jitsu or combatives outside their regularly
mandated incremental training required by their department.
This study is by no means exhaustive and certainly open to
interpretation. We are neither scientists nor professional statisticians, and
therefore acknowledge the inherent flaws in this article. We also note that we
may have left things out which are glaringly obvious. We conclude that this is
just the second of many refined research papers we will tackle.
We also tried to keep this paper “short” and concede it’s not scholastic
in nature and may contain errors. We wanted to give the bare bones in order to
get the message across in normal everyday language and presentation.
Lastly, it’s very important that we state that we are pro police
(obviously). The complexities of the job are vast and the struggles officers
deal with in an ever- changing environment are real. We are NOT looking to cast
a shadow over officers that aren’t training. We aren’t trying to guilt trip cops
in to hitting the mats. We are trying to show the multitude of reasons police
are not training. Our research has
identified an interesting discovery that we call the “primary-secondary phenomenon.”
The Author and Collaborator are both active police officers, black belts
in Jiu Jitsu and use of force teachers.
Goal: The goal of this study was to uncover the reasons police officers are
not training and use that information to reverse this trend and get more law
enforcement learning this valuable skill.
Why Train: If you are reading this you probably know the Invictus Leo Jiu Jitsu
Collective's main objective is to get
police officers to train in Jiu Jitsu. The hashtag movement #BJJMAKEITMANDATORY has spread
tremendously since our inception. There are a thousand reasons to train but sadly it only takes
one excuse not too. This study and article does not focus on the benefits of Jiu Jitsu (which there are many).
The Discussion: Among trained officers, the discussion on why the majority of police
are not training in Jiu Jitsu as their primary use of force art is common
place. We wanted to see how these were reflected in an actual study from non-
training officers.
Before we continue, we need to state that officers are trained at a
variety of different levels. Every academy, agency and department will have
their own standards. Some are better than others.
The Primary-Secondary Phenomenon:
We don’t have a catchy name for this so we simply are calling it what it
is. What we uncovered during our study was that officers that do not train jiu
jitsu have their “main reason(s) for not training” (primary) but almost always
acknowledge a secondary aspect that kept them off the mats. This secondary
phenomenon is what we found most interesting during this study.
Demographics of Responding Officers
Years of
Experience:
Less than 1
Year: 4%
1-5 years:
10%
6-10 years:
21%
11-15
years: 33%
16-20
years: 15%
21 + Years:
17%
Our statistics show that there seems to be a trend that officers who
have been on the job longer than 6 years are less likely to train.
PRIMARY REASONS/EXCUSES
FOR NOT TRAINING:
We will tackle the Primary Reasons first. We will add some statistics
but have opted to refrain from throwing out numbers and percentages en mass in
order to make for an easier read. Note that these were the TOP and most
frequent reasons officers listed for not training jiu jitsu or combatives. Many
officers also combined 2 or 3 other reasons for avoiding “extra curricular
training”. Percentage statistics do not equal 100% in many cases because
officers selected multiple areas of reasons and excuses.
TIME AS A REASON/EXCUSE
Lack of time appeared to be the most common primary reason
cited for officers not training (71%) Non Training Officers identified several
sub reasons on why time was a factor in not training.
a) Family: 78% of officers identified
that spending time with their family trumped all other considerations. Because
of the hectic and long hours that policing requires, especially at the patrol
level, officers did not prioritize training as something they wanted to do.
Given the choice between training and their family, family almost always “won”.
b) Hobbies: 45% of officers identified
secondly (after family), that their down time was important to them. This
included and sometimes overlapped family time. These hobbies included but were
not limited to: sports (gym, running, biking), media relaxation (movies, Netflix,
video games), reading, and social outings with friends.
c) Schedule: 15% of officers cited that
their work schedule prevented them from training (shift work, nights) but also
admitted that they had not sought out other officers within their departments
to conduct “mat training” on their own.
COST AS A REASON/EXCUSE
Officers cited cost of Jiu Jitsu classes a barrier to training. Cost
ended up linking to family commitments often (45% of the time) but
interestingly; officers also cited that they believed their departments should
flip the bill for their training (38% of the time). Officers however were aware
of that their departments are under budgetary constraints are can’t always
provide for this.
FEAR OF INJURY AS A
REASON/EXCUSE
This was cited as another reason officer did not pursue training. They
acknowledged that their departments would consider injuries outside of work
time not to be covered by workers compensation. Officer’s noted that they did
not want to engage in what they perceived as a high risk actively where they
could get injured (48%)
65% of respondents said that they have pre existing injuries and did not
want to risk re-injuring themselves in high risk martial arts training.
NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT JIU
JITSU IS AS A REASON/EXCUSE
Another high percentage response (usually coupled with one of the other
primary reasons, on why cops weren’t training). 86% of non training officers
noted that they didn’t know the benefits of jiu jitsu or combatives training.
Of that number, 50% believed that it would take “too long to become proficient”
to make training worth while. Also, 44% identified Jiu Jitsu as “Mixed Martial
Arts or UFC fighting” and really did not know what the art could offer.
STRENGTH OVER SKILL/ TOOLS
OVER TECHNIQUE AS A REASON/EXCUSE
These two categories came in almost identical at around 18% each. Many
officers noted that they relied on their physical condition (strength, speed,
endurance) to win their use of force encounters. Further to that, 50% cited
that the gym and lifting weights were more important than ‘technique training.”
Officers tend to spend more time lifting weights and shooting than practicing
arrest and combatives skills.
Almost identically (17%), officers listed that weapon usage (baton, taser,
OC spray and firearm) equalized or prevented physical encounters. About 50% of
all the officers polled in this study stated that they "worked out".
EGO AS A REASON/EXCUSE
We understood that simply asking if “ego” was a factor would prevent
many from selecting “ego as the factor”. Therefore, we masked how we asked this
question which lead to our secondary reason below. Ego is a broadly defined (in
our context) as: consciously believing that one does not need something based
on experience, feeling or justification.
Secondary Reason for not Training: Normalcy
Bias
During this study, we discovered a secondary reason that a staggering
86% of non training officers cited as a reason for not doing extra curricular
jiu jitsu training. This secondary reason overlapped all the primary reasons.
This, we believe, is actually one of the CORE reasons cops aren’t hitting the
mats.
Members in our study indicated that that during the course of their
careers, they had not needed Jiu Jitsu training because they felt they had come
out on top in most encounters. They pointed to the “haven’t needed it so don’t
need it” in this section. This is called a Normalcy Bias.
The normalcy bias, is a belief people hold when there is a
possibility of a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the
likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects, because people believe that
things will always function the way things normally have functioned. The normalcy
bias is often experienced when people have never had a situation happen to them
before. They use the fact that an event has never happened to justify their
belief that it will never happen. It is similar to confirmation bias (which we
have written about previously).
Our respondents pointed to team tactics (more officers than suspects,
tool deployment and strength/endurance) as the reasons for this. Although
approximately 35% acknowledged that they don’t know what they don’t know. This
meant that officers didn’t understand the benefits of jiu jitsu because they
didn’t know what it was or how it could help them improve.
We noted that officer and suspect
injury was higher in non trained officer’s by nearly
300%. This alone should be the selling
point to every department in the World. We know that we need to ask more
questions to get a better understanding on this number. We only asked if
officers were injured or suspects were injured in their encounters. There is
much more to be investigated on this subject of course.
During our discussion with non-training officers (non polled), we tried
to get more information on the “haven’t needed it so don’t need it” reasoning.
Surprisingly, the majority of officers said that they knew that injury could occur on the job but felt their
experience dealing with these situations was sufficient. Officers oddly noted
that they felt their departments could give better use of force training and
also understood that members of the public are more trained than ever before.
They acknowledged that trained suspects offered a much higher risk of injury to
themselves and others but many hadn’t run into them yet.
We offered the analogy in our discussion that “its too late to learn how
to swim once you’ve been thrown into the deep end.” Officers acknowledged that
being proactive rather than reactive was important and that the risk of injury
did exist after better reflection. They also stated that they were aware
more and more suspects are training today than ever before.
CONCLUSION and FINDINGS:
After looking at our results, we have concluded that the normalcy bias
is a real and present reason for most officers not to train jiu jitsu. Our
discussions also lead us to the conclusion that there is an understanding among
officers that there is benefit to jiu jitsu but they could not find the “time
or justification” in training. There are several inherent contradictions we
uncovered.
We also noted that of the 1550 officers polled, 50% said they hit the
gym or exercised on a regular basis (2 times a week+). However, these same
officers noted that they didn’t have time for combatives training even though
they made time for other exercise. There is a priority of importance here that
defies logic.
Not enough time was cited as the primary reason for
not training with the belief that the skills officers had were sufficient in
hand to hand and arrest encounters. This secondary belief was re-enforced based
on the officers experience of not being injured on the job or discounting
injury as a low percentage occurrence. Again, officers were aware that they
were not invincible and that they may be more likely to seek out training if
they found their skills not working on a higher percentage.
The majority of officers noted the last time their received combatives
training was in the police academy and that the skills they learned were
"bare bones". Some officers stated that their use of force
instruction at their academies were jiu jitsu based and that they found that
they retained and used some of those skills on the job. This appeared to be the
response of officers who had 10 years or less on the job.
Although not polled, we have evidence to suggest officers who are in the
later part of their careers, close to retirement or not ‘on the street’ are
much less likely to train in jiu jitsu and use of force combatives.
Furthermore, as a side note to this, officers who we know that fall into this
category (later in their careers) but are training, are training because of the
health, exercise, and benefits in dealing with PTSD.
Lastly, we anticipate that this study may raise more questions than we
initially studied. Discussion is good. This needs to be talked about. If you
found yourself to be one of these statistics, that's ok. The great thing is
that you can change this at anytime, if you are willing to. We'd like to thank
all the officers that took the time in providing input into this study.
AFTERWARD:
We have noted that the culture of policing is changing slowly in regards
to Jiu Jitsu training. More officers than ever are taking up Jiu Jitsu as their
primary use of force study because of its practicality and usability on the
job. They understand than its real and scalable for the line of work that they
do. Approximately 3% of police officers are training in Jiu Jitsu. This number
is too low. It must be changed. And it is changing.
The culture is changing based on the efforts of officers in departments
pushing the #BJJMAKEITMANDATORY movement. More use of force instructors are
trained in Jiu Jitsu and are becoming leaders within their organization and
thus changing the culture. There is of course resistance by both departments
and current use of force cadres that don’t understand the benefit of jiu jitsu or
are not willing to acknowledge that there are better ways to control another
human being that does not want to be controlled.
We encourage you to join our movement and start training. We can direct
you to certified and police friendly academies around the world. The Invictus
movement is not in competition with other Jiu Jitsu police companies-we are an
add on to help push the narrative the Jiu Jitsu saves lives. Lets us help you.
Please visit our website for a list of our super seminar schedules. All
instruction is volunteered and proceeds go to a foundation that supports
families of fallen officers.
Keep training. Start training. Be Safe. Be Smart.
Ari Knazan and Jason Rebsch
Founders, Invictus Leo Jiu Jitsu Collective
Follow Us on Facebook and Instragram
@invictusleo_officical
Contact us at info@invictusleo.org
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
We are adding this section to note
that we had struck a chord within the policing circles. Our article had been
read over 10 000 times in a one week span with numerous officers and agencies
reaching out for this PDF article. This is pretty impressive considering the
niche market we cater too (cops who train jiu jitsu and those who support this
cause). We have also received dozens of emails with great feedback. And best of
all, we have literally had officers let us know that they are returning to Jiu
Jitsu, which is the biggest win of all. Yes, you should train and shelve the
excuses. As you can imagine, there are officers with all the same time, family,
and money constraints you have-but the difference is that THEY ARE TRAINING. So
what is the disconnect? I am sure you’ve seen what our research has shown and
can figure it out.
We will continue to research and
help police agencies and individuals understand the science behind all of this.
More to come.
