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 Atrocitiesoffer the REPAIR (Redefining Policing to Affirm and Instill Human Rights) program. REPAIR is a U.S.-specific, human rights-centered training program that uses best practices from the field of atrocity prevention to build capacity in law enforcement departments to detect relevant risk factors for civil and human rights abuses and identify appropriate response tools to promote and protect those rights.  

To date, over 1,400 officers from 33 police departments have successfully participated in the REPAIR program, ranging in size from smaller university public safety departments to large urban departments. 

Participation

In 2020, the Atlanta Police Department contracted REPAIR to train its entire police force by the end of 2022, an initiative which the Mayor of Atlanta recognized in a Community Policing Roadmap. REPAIR has trained police department leaders and cohorts of leaders and officers in 45 other U.S. cities, including:  

  • Boston Police Department, Maryland 
  • Boise Police Department, Idaho 
  • Charlottesville Police Department, Virginia 
  • Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia 
  • Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia 
  • Houston Police Department, Texas 
  • Los Angeles Police Department, California 
  • Miami Police Department, Florida 
  • Philadelphia Police Department, Pennsylvania 
  • Phoenix Police Department, Arizona 
  • Portland Police Bureau, Oregon 
  • Seattle Police Department, Washington 
  • Tempe Police Department, Arizona 

Background

NCCHR and AIPG launched REPAIR in 2020 as a virtual version of the National Law Enforcement Seminar offered from 2017 to 2019. REPAIR was designed in collaboration with veteran law enforcement professionals, and experts in the fields of history, atrocity prevention, social psychology, and law. The program is both pro-police and pro-reform. REPAIR also addresses concerns surrounding officer wellness and safety as well as policing in and for traumatized communities.

Course Components

Component 1: Six-week Leadership Course

This six-week, virtual, asynchronous course addresses topics such as Community Policing, Policing in Deeply Divided Societies, and Duty to Intervene. Intended to be completed by sergeants and above, departments may choose to include other ranks and unsworn personnel. Designed so that students learn each section’s content during a one-week period, the course material uses visual, auditory, and written aids to accommodate different learning styles. 

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. Duty to Intervene 

‍‍Program Goals: 

  1. To instill in participants the values of promoting and protecting civil and human rights, and to examine the factors which put societies at risk for violating those rights.  
  2. To emphasize the ways in which the promotion and protection of civil and human rights by law enforcement plays a role in the prevention of grave human rights violations.  
  3. To sensitize law enforcement personnel to the systemic features of policing structures that may negatively affect communities of color, as well as the implicit bias that can impact decision-making at an individual level.  
  4. To apply those lessons to the challenges facing police today in serving diverse communities in a deeply divided society. 

Component 2: Training of Trainers

Leaders who have completed the six-week course are eligible to be selected as trainers by their department to provide training for rank-and-file officers. These leaders attend a one-day, in-person “Training of Trainers”, where they receive instruction on delivering training to non-leadership personnel, including issues and case studies tailored to a department’s local context. The result of this training is a customized eight-hour curriculum that departments can deliver in the manner most effective to meet their training needs. REPAIR assists in the structuring and implementation of this training curriculum. Following the completion of this component, REPAIR conducts check-ins and regular reviews of the response to the material. 

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 

After this initial training period, REPAIR content and support will be provided through a further negotiated agreement. 

Component 3: Trauma-Informed Policing

This three-week, virtual, asynchronous course examines topics addressed in the six-week course at a higher level, and focuses on understanding the nature of trauma and how to identify it, how trauma influences the communities in which law enforcement operate, and how trauma impacts the lives and work of police officers. This is one of the 5 priorities for Police Reform determined by the Council on Criminal Justice’s Task Force on Policing. We offer two different versions of this course: one more advanced for Leadership and one more introductory 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 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.  

The curriculum will cover:  

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

Course Goals: 

  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. 

Download the The REPAIR Course Outline & Curriculum. 

    “This course 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

    “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

     

    “What stands out the most is the impact the class has had on my mind and heart.”

    2021 REPAIR participant

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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.