Pikes Peak State College innovating new ways to train law enforcement using virtual reality
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Pikes Peak State College is improving its law enforcement academy to reinvent training to make better officers.
Through using virtual reality modules, PPSC is putting cadets in the shoes of a citizen being pulled over or a person they're interacting with on the street. These exercises are meant to teach empathy.
"Studies have shown, you can teach empathy as a skill, it can be developed," PPSC Marketing and Communication Executive Director Warren Epstein said.
One scenario is a traffic stop and the other is mental illness. Each experience plays out in both a "good cop" and a "bad cop" way.
The idea comes in response to George Floyd's death to make better officers who could empathize with the other side in their interactions.
"Teaching people to be good officers is a lot more complex than teaching them to be a good accountant or welder," Epstein said. "The stakes are higher because I think there's a natural sense when people become officers to become desensitized. You have to, it's a natural survival mechanism to emotionally distance yourself a bit. So much of our training is tactical. You know how to shoot. This happens, you do this. But we had this idea, what if you could teach empathy."
Instructors said the cadets naturally tend to want to empathize with the officers in the scenarios. But the goal is to bring emotion into the experience to get them to relate to the other perspective.
"When they see officers doing things badly, their first reaction is, well I wouldn't do something like that, and they detach themselves," Epstein said. "So we try to on the front end, understand that, and say, we want you to lean into empathy and understanding the perspective of the citizens."
PPSC partnered with the law enforcement academy instructors and the diversity and inclusion team to make this happen. Their mission is to innovate cadet training to be meaningful, emotional, and impactful.
"To me the more emotions that are involved, the more you're going to remember this," Epstein said. "The other thing that helps is the discussion afterward."
Instructors hope that this is just the beginning and that other colleges will pick up the idea. The school plans to expand the modules to also include scenarios with domestic disputes, suspicious activity, and more.
