It’s an unfortunate reality of policing that sometimes the police must put their hands on people. At times, policing is a very physical business. There really is no effective and safe way to place someone in handcuffs without putting your hands on them. And when you do, sometimes they don’t react well. Most of the time people being arrested are cooperative and resigned to their custody status. However, there are enough instances where people being placed under arrest resist violently to make this an important policing issue. Consequently, this requires officers react with their own level of force – sometimes with dire consequences.

In the future, cops will probably have access to tools that incapacitate resisting arrestees without hurting them. But those tools don’t exist today, and we are forced, as a first level use-of-force, to resort to putting our hands on them to try and restrain them. The extent to which officers are proficient in the use of “hands-on” techniques directly relates to the reduction of injuries to arrested persons. This is where martial arts-centered defensive tactics comes into play. While we use the term “defensive tactics” to describe this type of training, it should be clear that the use of hands-on techniques is also about placing a combative individual in handcuffs, so the struggle ends with the least possible amount of injury to both officers and arrested persons.

In this article I articulate my view of the best-case scenario for defensive tactics training for police officers. It’s based on my own experiences as a street cop, my years of martial arts training and my perspective as a defensive tactics training instructor for a large American police department.

Optimistic or Best-Case Scenario

Even in the best-case scenario, the future need for police officers to physically detain a resistant subject who does not want to yield to police authority will unfortunately remain. While we can have the fun and superfluous science fiction conversation about using wildly advanced technologies and abilities to detain people, we are still a far cry from using psychokinetic abilities or fully autonomous robots in policing. At least for now. However, what is applicable and useful for law enforcement professionals is the incorporation of various martial arts into defensive/arrest and control tactics programs from around the world.

Grappling-based martial arts, such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, wrestling (Catch/Greco Roman/Free/etc.), may all have effective techniques for law enforcement professionals to utilize to safely detain a resistant subject. Striking or weapon-based martial arts, however, should not be neglected. If for no other reason than to teach prospective and current law enforcement professionals in the defense of some of the more common attacks in striking and weapon based martial arts, or as a means of achieving a predictable physiological response from the subject as a departments' policies allow. The focus should remain on the grappling-based martial arts as they are best suited for accomplishing one of the most contentious legal law enforcement missions, affecting an arrest or detention of a physically resistant subject. In addition, with the proliferation of smartphones, the Internet, and social media, where literally anyone can be a real-time “citizen reporter” capturing and posting police use-of-force incidents, the optics of an officers using hands on, martial arts-based techniques to subdue and combative person is not nearly as problematic as those incidents where a subject is struck with a weapon or shot by the police.

When a law enforcement agency puts together a defensive tactics program, they usually follow three parameters:

1. Available vendors (martial arts or training gyms) in the area,

2. Resources (financial, manpower, facilities, etc.) the department has available to maintain a program, and,

3. Employee interest inside of the agency for the training.

The above factors constitute major internal factors as to why the nation’s law enforcement agencies progress and explain why improvements have been so slow for their defensive tactics’ programs.

Fortunately, there are factors affecting these issues. These include:

1. The advent of companies like Gracie Survival Tactics, Code 4 Concepts, EFCombatives, Sheepdog Response, etc., whom have a national reach and have more often updated and applicable material to teach,

2. More scrutiny over use of force incidents in the nation may now allow for more resources to be available for instructors to put together a more robust program,

3. And currently, in the information age where ideas such as the Austin (TX) Police Jiu-Jitsu program and the mandatory BJJ training for the Marietta (GA) police department flow more freely, there is increased interest by law enforcement professionals to acquire this type of training.

I believe the law enforcement profession is poised to see a renaissance period in our defensive tactics programs, but we must follow certain guidelines to avoid problems. For example, adopted programs should be framed around martial arts-based systems. This means the instruction is based on basic concepts of fighting, such as creating angles on the subject you’re controlling, ensuring you maintain a good physical posture, and never giving up your base (connection to the ground) because doing so makes you vulnerable to being pushed over. It also means that a set of high success rate and low risk of injury techniques should be taught. This will give prospective and current law enforcement officials a better idea of how to apply these concepts as well as provide good options for people who have never been taught how to defend themselves. This combination of concept-based systems and a set of techniques helps students of all experience levels to learn and utilize your selected defensive tactics program in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

A good defensive tactics program should also contain some important policy aspects. Key points to consider are:

• Mandatory training/retraining,

• Paid for by the agency (either provided directly by the department instructors or gym memberships paid for),

• Employees are covered by workers compensation program in case of injury,

• Employees attend training a minimum of once or twice a week, and,

• Reality-based scenario training (high and low anxiety scenarios) should be used for both stress inoculation for the program student, as well as evaluation of the program itself.

If the law enforcement community leads this way into our defensive tactics future, we can lower injury rates to subjects and officers, lower the severity of the force used, improve moral, improve, and maintain positive relationships with the communities we serve, and possibly many more benefits. We need to be self-motivated to acquire the good evidence-based training we know we need, which is a concept based martial system grounded in grappling style martial arts.

Useful Sources

Harmon, N. L. (n.d.). An Exploratory Study of the Perceptions of Effectiveness for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Training for Law Enforcement (thesis).

King, J., & Culpepper, C. (2020, February 17). Teaching Control Tactics with Jiu-Jitsu: Why the Marietta (GA) Police Department made Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Training Mandatory. Police: Law Enforcement Solutions (https://www.policemag.com/training/article/15313058/teaching-control-tactics-with-jiu-jitsu#:~:text=Most%20agencies%20train%20once%20a,during%2C%20and%20after%20the%20academy)

Koedijk, M., Renden, P. G., Oudejans, R. R., & Hutter, R. I. (2019). Training for the job: Evaluation of a self-defence training programme for correctional officers. Ergonomics, 62(12), 1585–1597. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2019.1677947

Parks, G. S. (2021). Martial Arts as a remedy for racialized police violence. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3968151

Vera Jiménez, J., Fernandez, F., Ayuso, J., & Lorente Acosta, J. A. (2020). Evaluation of the police operational tactical procedures for reducing officer injuries resulting from physical interventions in problematic arrests. the case of the Municipal Police of Cádiz (Spain). International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, 33(1), 35–43. https://doi.org/10.13075/ijomeh.1896.01422"

About the author

Adam Kaufman is a veteran of police agencies in Washington, DC and Texas. He has served as a Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) instructor, field training officer, a self-defense/Kyokushin Karate instructor, bike officer, and crisis intervention team officer. He currently serves as a mental health officer, a defensive tactics academy instructor, Special Response Team officer, A.B.L.E. instructor, and member of the Pipes and Drums Team. Click here to read his full bio.