# Police-- Secret Methods? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2004, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161 "2004-06-25T09:56:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/1 "2004-06-25T09:56:25Z")
Police receive all sorts of training in dealing with crowd control and members of the public. From what I’ve gleaned, there are a lot of techniques they are taught to “maintain control” of the situation. Obviously keeping those techniques from widespread public knowledge is part of what makes them work. Likewise security forces/ airline security etc. So I gotta know! What are some of the things they learn? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/2 "2004-06-25T13:00:27Z")
There’s nothing secret about crowd control techniques, if that’s what you’re asking. Your local library has textbooks all about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/3 "2004-06-25T16:55:45Z")
Very little of this stuff is secret. You would be amazed at how LITTLE security staff or the police knows. My wife worked for 9 months as a security guard without receiving more than 2 days of training. The whole two days centered around customer service and familiarizing her with her job site. They didn’t even bother giving her use of force training, although she had received it at a previous job. Police academies only run a few weeks. There is a ton of legal stuff to cover, and a ton of common-sense stuff to drill into cadets. A cop you see on the street knows more about his job than you do. He doesn’t know THAT MUCH more about it than you do, just some handy tricks. A lot of law enforcement techniques are pretty much common knowledge for anyone with access to a decent library. The government documents archive at the university I attended included an FBI guide to surveillance techniques, including how to tail a man on foot or in a car without being detected. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/4 "2004-06-25T17:35:29Z")
**Jonathan Woodall** wrote > [@](#): > > You would be amazed at how LITTLE security staff or the police knows. I beg to differ. At least in moderate to large cities, police academy is a lot longer than “a couple weeks”, typically 30 to 40 weeks, and they are trained in far more than what your wife saw in her two days of customer service training. No disrespect to your wife, but the responsibilities of a police officer are far higher than for a security guard. [Here](http://www.sannet.gov/police/join/selection.shtml) is a quote from the San Diego Police Dept web site, a department where several friends of mine are on the force. > [@](#): > > The San Diego Regional Law Enforcement Training Center, located on the Miramar College campus, conducts a 32 week college level training program (Academy) for which you will earn 20 college semester units. As a Police Recruit, you will attend classroom lectures and demonstrations, read textbooks, laws, court cases, and articles dealing with law enforcement. You will be required to complete homework, write reports and take and pass examinations on course materials. Academy subjects include principles of law enforcement, criminal law, rules and evidence, search and seizure, laws of arrest and control methods, traffic laws, juvenile laws, first aid, care and use of firearms, patrol theory and methods, the criminal justice system, and physical conditioning and self-defense. You will also complete six weeks of field training while attending the Academy. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/5 "2004-06-25T17:46:56Z")
> [@Bill H.](#): > > **Jonathan Woodall** wrote > > No disrespect to your wife, but the responsibilities of a police officer are far higher than for a security guard. It appears my notions were based on police academies from years past, or the training that smaller departments provide. Thank you for fighting my ignorance. I’m certain my wife wouldn’t disagree with, and would not feel disrespected by your statement. 🙂 I’ll stand by my position that the quantity of genuine secrets available to law enforcement is generally not substantial, at least in the fields of practice that the OP asked about. Actually, common “horse sense” applied to people is probably the best tool a law enforcement officer can have when dealing with crowds or the public. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/6 "2004-06-25T18:02:25Z")
**Jonathan Woodall** wrote > [@](#): > > I’ll stand by my position that the quantity of genuine secrets available to law enforcement is generally not substantial, at least in the fields of practice that the OP asked about. I absolutely agree. In fact, I doubt there really is anything “secret” in the field of crowd control. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/7 "2004-06-25T19:17:57Z")
> [@Jonathan Woodall](#): > > It appears my notions were based on police academies from years past, or the training that smaller departments provide. Thank you for fighting my ignorance. > I’m certain my wife wouldn’t disagree with, and would not feel disrespected by your statement. 🙂 Back when I went through the academy, it was 672 total hours - about 20 weeks. I think the state requires 700 something hours now. But your training does not end there. Most (much) of what you learn as an officer come from your FTO. Once you are hired, you will be given field training for roughly SIX MONTHS. That’s where the real training is. That’s when you learn how to really be an officer. The academy is just kind of a prerequisite. The FTO phase will vary by department, of course. But I’m pretty sure there are national accreditation standards that specify how much training departments need to give their officers to keep the department “accredited”. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/8 "2004-06-25T19:21:32Z")
FTO = Field Training Officer ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/9 "2004-06-25T19:47:54Z")
I think a lot of it is selecting the correct individual and then throwing them into situations where they learn very quickly. As far as Army crowd control guides, police handbooks and hth combat stuff, you can probably find them if you spent a weekend looking at used bookstores. I had a great California Sheriff’s manual from the '60s and there wasn’t really anything in it that wasn’t obvious upon a moment’s reflection, but then again, it was stuff that someone probably wouldn’t think of on their own. And the uniform, it’s difficult for me to grasp the power even a security guard with two days of training gets as soon as they put on the uniform. In the case of police, etc., you’ve also got to keep in mind that something that’s always in the back of one’s mind is: they’ve got friends. If you want to mess around with one cop, you may or may not succeed, but the moment he gets into trouble (or, more likely long before anything starts to happen), his partner’s right there. If there’s something that the two of them can’t handle, there’s a half-dozen guys there. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-secret-methods/252161/10 "2004-06-25T19:53:45Z")
I don’t think this is what the OP was referring to but there are some interesting new technologies being developed in secret and that have obvious crowd control potential. [accoustic assult rifle](http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50483-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1) > [@](#): > > American Technology is also working on a stronger version of the technology called Directed Stick Radiator, Croft said. This “acoustic assault rifle” is shaped like a gun, but instead of bullets, it dispenses high-decibel sounds that would cause discomfort or even pain. > > Croft said the company is developing prototypes of the debilitating weapon that could be mounted on a jeep and used for crowd control. “It could be a very effective first-level deterrent,” he said. [medicinal calmatives](http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55337-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1) > [@](#): > > tem: calmatives, better known as psychotropic, central nervous system depressants or, more simply, downers. The JNLWD is studying their use – including such substances as fentanyls (an ultra-potent, heroin-like synthetic) and rohypnol, aka “roofies,” the so-called date-rape drug – as crowd-control mechanisms. Opponents say the use of all such drugs is banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. [RF pain generators](http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47395,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2) > [@](#): > > Vehicle-Mount Active Denial System: It’s still a prototype, but when finished, VMADS will send a narrow beam of electromagnetic energy toward a person or a small group of people. The idea is to cause extreme pain – but no permanent damage. (Think crowd control, not assaults on Afghan mountain bunkers.)