First Day at the Police Academy: Stress-Reaction-Training as a Screening-Out Technique

Abstract

This article draws its data from a larger ethnographic study of police academies in Massachusetts. The full study includes seven months of intensive field observations in seven regional police academies. The current article offers an ethnographic narrative account designed to draw out the first day in police training. In particular, to describe stress-reaction-training (SRT) programs. Recently, following allegations of brutality and torture in a municipal police academy in Massachusetts, SRT came under scrutiny. This close inspection of SRT revealed that no previous empirical study has examined this strategy of training/screening. In addition to detailed descriptions of SRT, this article considers the relationship between SRT and desocialization/resocialization of police recruits. Finally, this article offers several policy implications evident from the analysis. Included among these implications are recommendations for formal curriculum development, a limitation on duration, careful monitoring of recruits during SRT, and validation of the approach.