ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the present experience and to provide suggestions about how to design more comprehensive investigational protocols to evaluate police tactical stress, using scientific methods and available technologies gathered from experimental and clinical psychophysiology. It discusses basic information useful to understand what happens to police officers when a tactical scenario turns into violence and needs force-on-force action. In front of a potentially lethal threat, although in the grip of fight or flight—induced psychophysiological alterations, the police officer is required to maintain vigilance, dynamic threat assessment, sound judgment, and appropriate tactical decision making. Police training must be redesigned, taking into account modern knowledge in psychophysiology to provide officers with the capability to keep the highest possible degree of emotional and situational control. Research suggests that heart rate variability monitoring during tactical training can be useful to improve the operational efficiency and success of police officers.
