The REPAIR Course

The REPAIR Course: Civil & Human Rights Education for Law Enforcement

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, in collaboration with The Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, is proud to offer the REPAIR (Redefining Policing to Affirm and Instill Human Rights) program. REPAIR is a training  program for law enforcement personnel on the promotion and protection of civil and human rights.

Over 1,000 officers have successfully completed REPAIR courses with an average completion rate above 75%.

Background

The development of REPAIR was spurred by a shared national and global concern that the increasingly hostile environment of exclusion and social fragmentation in the US is heightening the risk for and occurrence of identity-based marginalization and violence. As history shows, such threats to civil and human rights can, if unchecked, become part of an escalating process of destruction that may lead to mass atrocity. 

The course uses the lessons learned from the field of atrocity prevention to help build capacity in our law enforcement partners to detect relevant risk factors for civil and human rights abuses, identify appropriate response tools to promote and protect those rights, and to develop best practices to foster resilience in targeted communities. REPAIR benefits from a newly created curriculum, developed with the assistance of experts in the fields of atrocity prevention, human and civil rights, African American history, and with the expertise of civil review boards, the Department of Justice, and  law enforcement leaders and professionals.

Download the The REPAIR Course Outline & Curriculum.

Course Components

Component 1: REPAIR Course

The first component of the REPAIR program is a 24-hour online course, offered to department leadership over a period of 6 weeks.

Component 2: Training of Trainers and Subscription to Support Ongoing Training of Rank-and-File Officers

The second component of the REPAIR program is a one-day in-person Training of Trainers (ToT) session, offered by REPAIR’s teaching team for those leaders who have been selected to become trainers of officers in their cohort going forward.

Component 3: Trauma-Informed Policing Course

Our newest addition to the REPAIR Program course offerings is our 3-week, 12- hour curriculum on Trauma-Informed Policing. This is one of the 5 priorities for Police Reform determined by the Council on Criminal Justice’s Task Force on Policing. In the Council’s words, “Officers who are trained to identify and address trauma in the community, and who have a heightened awareness of their own exposure to stress and trauma and seek help as needed, are better equipped to police in an equitable and respectful manner.” This course aims to address those professional development needs by promoting a trauma-informed approach to policing that will enhance officer wellness as well as community relations.

We offer 2 different versions of this course. The first is designed for law enforcement leadership, who, as a prerequisite, must first participate in the REPAIR leadership course, which covers essential material on social identity, deeply divided societies, and the history of policing, not covered in depth in this course.

The second is a more introductory and accessible version designed for lower rank officers who are not required to first participate in the REPAIR course, but will encounter its material through their department’s own Training of Trainers designed curriculum.

This course follows the same model as our REPAIR leadership course, including self-led reading assignments, interactive and reflective exercises, and discussions. It is also asynchronous, but designed so that students are moving through the material at the same pace and learning each section’s content during a one-week period. This serves to maximize participant engagement with each other and with the instructor in order to create a robust learning environment with productive discourse and a vibrant exchange of ideas, solutions, and best practices.

The course covers the following topics:

  1. Understanding Deeply Divided Societies
  2. Impacts of Direct and Vicarious Trauma on Officer Wellness and Safety
  3. Policing in Traumatized Communities

The goals of the course are:

  1. To understand the defining features of a deeply divided society and the consequences of living in such a society.
  2. To emphasize the ways in which policing can promote adaptive resiliency in a deeply divided society.
  3. To reinforce the need for law enforcement personnel to be self-aware of the impacts of direct and vicarious trauma on their own personal wellness.
  4. To sensitize law enforcement personnel to recognize and address trauma and apply that knowledge to increase cultural understanding between officers and the communities they serve.

“We already do a lot around implicit bias, but I was blown away at the connection between implicit bias and trauma. I’m so excited to build out programs to dive into that. I also have started conversations around shifting our focus from ‘law and order’ to ‘human rights.'”

– 2021 REPAIR Participant

“There are certain things that stand out for me about the content of the course, but what stands out the most is the impact the class has had on my mind and heart.”

– 2021 REPAIR Participant

 

“This course gave me time to process some of my own thoughts and feelings around what is happening in and to the profession of policing. It has helped me see how far we are from what I think we are doing and what the community sees us doing. This class pointed out that continuing the work to build partnerships, transparency, trust and mutual understanding at a local level is paramount… These are vital for progress.”

– 2021 REPAIR participant

Introductory Video

REPAIR Course for Department Leadership

The curriculum will cover:

  1.  Social Identity in Deeply Divided Societies
  2. The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
  3. Challenges in Community Policing
  4. Impact of Policing Structures on Policing Behavior
  5. Police Reform
  6. Federal Law and Policing

Training of Trainers (ToT) and Subscription to Support Ongoing Training of Rank-and-File Officers

The curriculum will cover:

  1. Social Identity and Deeply Divided Societies
  2. Unpacking Implicit Bias in Policing
  3. History of Policing in the US
  4. Citizen Review Boards and Police Reform
  5. Becoming Evil: The Psychology of How Ordinary People Commit Atrocities
  6. Policing in Traumatized Communities
  7. Understanding Deeply Divided Societies
  8. Impacts of Direct and Vicarious Trauma on Officer Wellness and Safety
  9. Policing in Traumatized Communities

Sponsored By

Contact Us to Register or for More Information

Course Creators

The Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG) is a non-governmental organization that, through education, training, and technical assistance, supports States to develop or strengthen policies and practices for the prevention of genocide and other mass atrocities. We also encourage and support the cooperation of States through regional and international networks to advance prevention. More than seven decades after the Holocaust, genocide and other mass atrocities remain a threat to world peace and security. Effective genocide prevention requires a multi-dimensional approach to education that is built on the promotion and protection of civil and human rights. The Auschwitz Institute’s programs are carefully designed by experts in the field to provide comprehensive training for policymakers and the security sector to forge networks of cooperation across the globe. You can read about our work and all our programs on the AIPG website.

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is a museum and human rights institution in Atlanta, Georgia. Our museum’s permanent exhibitions present: US civil rights history, the contemporary struggle for human rights around the world, and the papers and artifacts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (in partnership with Morehouse College). Our education programs provide schools with curricular and other resource materials that promote critical thinking about US history and its ongoing relevance. Our community engagement programs—conversations, events and performances—bring together experts to address advancing rights, civic participation, and protecting democratic ideals. In our leadership programs, we train police departments on how the promotion and protection of human rights plays a role in the prevention of human rights abuses. We also train corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations on how to ensure their workplaces are diverse, equitable and inclusive.