Narrowing the scope of de-escalation: A grounded theory of police-public interpersonal interaction

In the complex world of modern policing, a single word has become a rallying cry for reform: de-escalation. For years, police departments, training manuals, and public advocates have used this term to describe the goal of calming tense situations and avoiding the use of force. The idea is simple and compelling: if an officer can lower the temperature of a confrontation, no one gets hurt, and the law is upheld without violence. However, the concept has grown so large and vague that it has become difficult to teach or measure. When a training curriculum lists everything from "active listening" and "patience" to "maintaining distance" and "pointing a weapon" under the same label, it becomes impossible to know which specific actions actually work, or even what the term is supposed to mean. This confusion leaves researchers struggling to prove whether de-escalation training works, and it leaves officers without clear guidance on what to do when a situation begins to heat up.

A team of researchers at Clemson University set out to untangle this knot by building a new way to understand police interactions. They did not conduct a new survey of officers or film new encounters. Instead, they treated the existing body of police training materials and academic studies as a map that had become too crowded to read. By carefully analyzing 134 specific behaviors recommended in these documents, the researchers developed a grounded theory—a framework built directly from the data rather than imposed from the outside. Their work suggests that the current, broad definition of de-escalation is too messy to be useful. They argue that to make sense of police work, we must stop treating "de-escalation" as a single catch-all strategy and start seeing it as just one specific tool in a much larger, more precise toolbox.

The researchers began by looking at the thousands of words used to describe what officers should do. They found that sources often grouped wildly different actions together. One manual might list "empathy" and "handcuffing" in the same section on de-escalation. Another might suggest that "pointing a firearm" is a de-escalation tactic if it prevents a need for more force later. The researchers realized that this lack of precision was the root of the problem. If a study claims that de-escalation training reduced injuries, it is unclear whether the success came from better listening, from officers staying calm, or from the strategic use of threats. To fix this, the team broke down the interactions into their smallest, most observable parts. They asked a simple question for every single behavior: what immediate goal is this action trying to achieve?

Through this process, they identified that police officers are constantly shifting between seven distinct professional goals during an encounter. The first and most fundamental goal is safety. This is not just about the officer surviving, but about protecting everyone involved—the suspect, bystanders, and the public. Safety acts as the foundation for everything else; if a threat is immediate, the officer must prioritize protection over conversation. The second goal is investigation, which involves gathering information to understand what is happening and how to resolve it. The third is officer self-regulation and rapport, where the officer manages their own emotions and builds a connection with the person they are speaking to, ensuring the conversation can continue without the officer accidentally making things worse.

The researchers then found the specific category that most people think of when they hear "de-escalation." In their framework, this is a narrow, specific goal: lowering the intensity of a person's heightened emotional or psychological state. This only applies when a person is angry, panicked, or in crisis. If a person is calm, the same behaviors, like speaking softly or showing empathy, are not de-escalation; they are simply building rapport or negotiating. The fourth goal is negotiation, which is the act of persuading someone to comply without physical force. This is different from de-escalation because a person can be calm and still refuse to obey. The final two goals involve force. The researchers distinguished between "coercive compliance," which uses threats or pain to convince someone to obey, and "compelled compliance," which uses physical force to make someone obey regardless of their will. This distinction is crucial because it changes how we understand the mechanism of action. A threat works by changing a person's mind; physical force works by overriding their ability to act.

The study also clarified the difference between the process of an encounter and its final outcome. The researchers identified three types of resolutions: voluntary, where a person agrees to comply; coercive, where they comply because of a threat; and forcible, where they are physically made to comply. A key finding is that these outcomes are not the same as the goals used to get there. An officer might successfully de-escalate a person's anger, only to find that the person still refuses to leave, requiring a negotiation or a threat. Conversely, an officer might use a threat to get compliance without ever calming the person down. By separating the goals from the outcomes, the framework allows researchers to see exactly which actions led to which results.

This new way of looking at police interactions challenges the idea that de-escalation is a single, universal solution. The researchers argue that treating it as a broad training label has made it analytically weak. You cannot test whether "de-escalation" works if the term includes everything from holding a hand to pointing a gun. Instead, the framework suggests that training and policy should focus on specific behaviors linked to specific goals. For example, a training program should not just teach "de-escalation"; it should teach officers how to use emotional labeling to reduce panic, or how to use distance to increase safety, or how to use negotiation to gain voluntary compliance. This precision allows for better evaluation. Instead of asking if a program worked in general, researchers can ask if a specific behavior, like offering choices, actually increased voluntary compliance in situations where the subject was not emotionally heightened.

The implications of this work extend beyond the classroom. For police trainers, it means moving away from vague concepts and toward clear, actionable skills. Officers need to learn to recognize the current state of an encounter and select the right tool for the job. If a person is in a crisis, the goal is de-escalation. If a person is calm but refusing, the goal is negotiation. If a person is a danger to others, the goal is safety and compelled compliance. For policy makers, the framework suggests that rules should be written with this level of detail, avoiding broad mandates that confuse different types of actions. For researchers, it offers a way to design studies that can actually prove what works, by measuring specific behaviors against specific outcomes rather than relying on a single, fuzzy label.

Ultimately, the researchers propose that the future of police reform lies in clarity. The current confusion around de-escalation has led to mixed results and public frustration. By narrowing the scope and defining exactly what each behavior is meant to accomplish, the framework provides a vocabulary that separates policy wishes from empirical facts. It acknowledges that police work is dynamic and that officers must constantly shift between safety, investigation, communication, and force. It recognizes that people have their own agency and that an officer cannot simply talk someone into compliance if that person is determined to resist. The goal is not to eliminate force or to promise that every encounter will end peacefully, but to ensure that every action taken is intentional, appropriate for the situation, and capable of being measured. In doing so, the study offers a path toward a more precise, effective, and accountable approach to policing, where the right tool is used for the right job, and the results can be clearly understood.