Newswise — A Middle Tennessee State University Criminal Justice Administration professor is banking on virtual reality being an operative training tool for police officers and he plans to study the results. Former police officer-turned-professor Ben Stickle co-authored a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant for the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, “Virtual Reality De-escalation Evidence-based Training Program,” that garnered $685,730 to be used over a three-year period. MTSU will receive $315,445 in partnership with the project for research.
Rutherford County is one of eight recipients of the highly competitive grant. Stickle and Rutherford County Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Rodgers will monitor the virtual reality training to determine if it is equally effective as traditional personal training in de-escalation and crisis intervention.
“The goal of de-escalation is to calm the situation down so we don’t have to resort to use of force,” Stickle said. “It’s really a challenge to calm that person down to work through situations.” The project will utilize Apex Officer, the top virtual reality training simulator built by police officers for police officers through the use of VR headsets.
Rodgers said other types of virtual reality training have pre-scripted scenarios while the virtual reality training system allows the trainer to script localized scenarios. “A few of the unique aspects of this proposal are the individualized development of VR situations like sc.
