Officer Survival for Probation and Parole Officers by Scott Kirshner is a comprehensive doctrine on officer survival for probation and parole officers. Whether you supervise adults or juveniles this book will provide you with a host of relevant and applicable information and skills that will make you a survival oriented officer. Topics include: Officers that have been killed in the line of duty, how to obtain a combat mindset, survival fundamentals, use of force, office safety, field safety, probation and parole searches, and self-aid/buddy aid. Also included is a copy of a Search Operational Plan that can be utilized on probation or parole searches. Whether you are a new officer or seasoned veteran this book will provide you with information that you can immediately implement to make you safer. This book is available on Amazon.com.
The idea behind developing a combat mindset is so that you will decisively win and prevail when engaged in a potentially life threatening situation against a dedicated threat. A “dedicated threat” is a person or persons whose main goal, desire, and motivation is to severely injure or kill you by any means necessary. This is the proverbial worst case scenario.
When engaged in a physical confrontation you must never give up. Surviving an attack depends on your ability to focus on the task at hand, outlast your attacker(s), and respond appropriately. You are never going to give up and as long as you are alive and breathing you will do everything within your power to be the victor in this violent engagement. This is why attending ongoing, realistic, and scenario based training is so critically important.
You must not only be trained for such worst case scenarios but you must actively participate in ongoing training to maintain and improve a high level of skill that will ensure peak performance on demand. If your current training classes are not dealing with the worst case scenario against a dedicated threat then your training is failing you. This is also valuable so that you do not become complacent.
Complacency evolves over time and sneaks up on you slowly day by day. With each passing day that is uneventful you get caught up more and more into the belief that nothing bad is going to happen, nothing is going to go wrong, and that you will remain safe as you have been in the past. For you complacency has now become routine due to a lack of incidents. You actually start believing that not only are you safe but there is no possibility that anything is going to happen. You begin taking unsafe shortcuts on safety policies, procedures, tactics, and techniques. You are now “that” complacent officer.
Avoiding complacency is a daily task that begins with the belief that: Today may be the day that violence will be directed toward you. You must take all safety precautions to avoid becoming a victim or a statistic. You must believe that complacency is your greatest enemy. You must believe that routine leads to complacency and complacency can lead to serious bodily injury or death.
Steps to avoid complacency:
- Acknowledge that complacency is real and that it is your enemy
- Understand that routine leads to complacency
- Have the belief that today there is possibility, however remote, that your safety and survival may be at risk
- Develop a daily routine aimed at battling complacency as it is always better to be proactive than reactive
- Continue to develop a winning mindset so that you will prevail in a violent encounter
It is important to develop a routine against complacency that does not involve paranoia. The reality is that being a community corrections officer is a relatively safe occupation and the chance of being injured or killed in the line of duty is remote. However, there is always the possibility that such an incident may occur. This is why it is critical to your safety that you are mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to respond to such an incident.
The question in relation to officer survival is: What is your motivation to be a survival-oriented officer?
Officers who are serious about officer survival will instantly be able to identify a host of valid reasons why their safety and survival is important. They are able to clearly articulate responses that go beyond the often repeated one liner: “I go home at the end of my shift.” That saying seems to be the knee jerk response that many officers parrot when asked what officer safety means. These officers have heard other officers say the same line over and over again. When you ask them to clarify what that saying means they tend to repeat it verbatim with no added insight; only added emphasis. They change their posture to a more official stance with head up, chest out, forward leaning, deep voice, beady eyes, grinding teeth, contorted face, and clenched fist: I go home at the end of my shift. Yet, there is no added clarity or insight.
And when you press them for a more in-depth response all too often they rarely have one. Sometimes the depth of the clarification becomes, “I go home; the bad guy doesn’t.” This scene is repeated in departments all over the country and it is not limited to probation or parole officers. I have heard this from police officers, corrections officers, detention officers, and court security officers. This shows that officers are able to repeat an often used phrase but fail to really understand its implication. Next, I want you to do the following exercise with the goal that you will understand why you should be motivated to train all of your officer survival skills to include verbal de-escalation, defensive tactics, firearms, mindset, and physical fitness.
About the author
Scott Kirshner, M.Ed. has been a Corrections Officer, Supervisory Probation Officer and a Parole Administrator. He has extensive experience as an officer safety trainer and has been a lead defensive tactics instructor, firearms instructor, and use of force instructor. In addition, he has written and taught numerous officer safety training curriculums on: Verbal De-escalation, Applied Defensive Tactics, Officer Awareness and the Tactical Mindset, Low-Light Shooting Tactics, and Searches. He has an “Officer Survival for Probation and Parole Officers” Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/CommitToWin. The author can be reached at: officersurvival@cox.net.