Dialogue that Works: Examining Police Communication Strategies and Citizen Compliance

Recent reform efforts within policing have placed an emphasis on developing tactics, techniques, and training related to officer communication. A key facet of this push is the recognition that officers play a role in managing citizen interactions rather than simply reacting to the situational dynamics. However, a problem currently facing the Dallas Police Department (DPD), and the broader policing occupation as a collective whole, is that while prior research has identified that varying communication strategies are associated with beneficial outcomes such as securing suspect compliance, there is little offered in terms of tangible empirically supported tactics that officers can apply and put into practice themselves. That is, there is little specificity offered as to “how” officers should engage in various communication strategies such as building rapport, active listening, showing patience, and offering empathy. To address the problem, the proposal seeks to leverage a previous collaboration between DPD and Arizona State University (ASU) to build a sustainable action research model with substantial policy, practice, and training implications. The project will take place over a two-year period (2025-2026). The initial step draws on the literature from areas such as criminology, psychology, communication, and interrogation to identify factors associated with citizen compliance and other beneficial outcomes (e.g., reduced citizen emotionality, information disclosure). From there, a systematic social observation (SSO) of body-worn camera footage (N=500) from DPD will be conducted to assess the strength of the predictors and detect key words, phrases, and other tactics that impact compliance. Next, a series of focus group discussions involving DPD patrol officers, training staff, and agency management will be conducted. A curated sample of videos from the SSO stage will be shown to participants to garner their perspective on various communication strategies, ways in which related training can be improved, and the best ways to translate research findings into a usable format for practitioners. The dissemination plan for the project emphasizes the need to roll out findings not only within DPD, but to the broader policing community through practitioner and scholarly focused outlets (e.g., a how-to-toolkit, webinars, workshops, training curriculum, publications). CA/NCF