What is De-Escalation? A Framework To Understand It and Move Beyond Common Complaints

In the introduction to this series of articles about “Reconsidering De-Escalation,” I framed our views on de-escalation by saying that I flatly reject the claim that efforts to expand the use of de-escalation tactics and techniques will get more police officers killed. Focusing on de-escalation will not put all officers at greater risk; it will only be those officers whose departments and trainers have failed to prepare them that will be exposed to more risk than they are now. Officers who are taught “what to think and what to do” instead of “how to think and why to do” will struggle to adapt and will find it difficult to function in the changing operational environment we experience today. Before we can show how de-escalation strategies actually improve officer safety while also allowing for a greater likelihood of accomplishing the mission in the next two articles, we first need to establish a common framework, some definitions and language for talking about de-escalation.

De-escalation is the process of taking a person who is displaying the dominant cluster of observable behavior and transitioning them into the comfortable cluster (here is an explanation about what the clusters of behavior are). That’s it. De-escalation is nothing more and nothing less than that. As the dominant cluster is the type of body language you will observe on a person who is preparing for a confrontation and the manifestation of the body’s fight response to perceived stresses and threats, de-escalation is the application of techniques to make a person less likely to fight. The comfortable cluster is how we know when we have successfully de-escalated a situation because that is the type of nonverbal behavior displayed by people who don’t perceive a threat and are not preparing for fight or flight. De-escalation is a method to staying left of bang by preventing a person who is on the edge of becoming violent from stepping over the threshold and deciding to launch their attack.

De-escalation is not a blanket solution to all problems or confrontations, and there are naturally some situations that are conducive to the approach and some that aren’t. Our definition of de-escalation helps us to understand that it is not something you do when, for example, facing an active killer. When we are already right of bang, as research on the psychology of active shooters shows, this type of killer is not interested in negotiating and de-escalation is not going to be an effective strategy. While the active killer is an extreme example, it highlights a key component to understanding when de-escalation can be used (while still left of bang) and when it shouldn’t (once bang has occurred).

Even though de-escalation is a technique that can help us stay left of bang, it doesn’t mean we can be ignorant of the fact that the people we are dealing with could still become violent. It is not something you attempt without mitigating the risk of attack or future violence. De-escalation does not imply that you should ignorantly put yourself into harms way. It is not naively holstering your sidearm or defenselessly sitting down in front of person who is still displaying the dominant cluster at a high intensity. Since de-escalation is taking a person down a path that leads them from the dominant cluster into the comfortable cluster, the officer should not drop their guard and still be prepared to fight until it is clear that the people they are talking don’t pose a threat.

While I know there are some training options available to police officers that does advocate for a police officer to default to a non-threatening approach as the sole means to de-escalate a situation (as they are often cited by people who oppose incorporating de-escalation into a training program), it is safe to say that not all training is created equal. Before you can determine that a non-threatening approach will be the most effective way to transition a person from the dominant cluster to the comfortable cluster, you first have to learn how to evaluate the intentions of that person. Learning de-escalation without first accounting for the relationship between distance and threats would be like listening to a firearms instructor who taught you that the best way to use your pistol is by pointing it at your own face and pulling the trigger. That is flat out the wrong way to teach an officer how to de-escalate a situation and is the danger that comes with teaching an officer “what to do and what to think.” For the same reasons why you would ignore an instructor who tried to teach you that the best way to treat a sucking chest wound is by putting a tourniquet on your leg, citing examples of bad training as a reason why de-escalation is an ineffective approach is a baseless argument and distracts from establishing a common understanding of what de-escalation is and what it isn’t.

In future articles in this series, we will establish the four ways to de-escalate a situation and how officers can develop their ability to use each approach, but it is important to remember that de-escalation is an additional option that officers can use to accomplish their goal of preventing violence while left of bang and without the use of force. It doesn’t eliminate the option of using of force altogether. If the person the officer is talking to chooses to become violent and chooses to ignore the officer’s attempt to prevent violence, then lethal or non-lethal force has become the new lowest level of force needed to get to the successful outcome of the situation. De-escalation requires that time is available so that the officer can transition the person out of the dominant cluster and is only possible in scenarios where the officer has been able to move beyond snap decisions about the nature of the threat.

While the framework for what de-escalation is can be clearly defined (the transition from dominance to comfort), answering the question of why the effort should be made and what the tactical benefits of spending the time to de-escalate a situation is what will be addressed in the next article.