It’s that time of year to reevaluate your yearly budget for what items you need and which items you can get by without for now. When you’re looking to improve your law enforcement or military agency with some updated equipment and judgmental use of force training options, there are ten signs that you are in desperate need of a training investment:
The current simulation training equipment is sitting in the corner: While the purchase of a simple “shoot don’t-shoot” simulator was a good idea at the time, your team hasn’t had much use for it. This problem is worse if you haven’t used it due to issues with the usability or system pairing with the weapons.
Your team needs new Use of Force training: Your team has training at the range, and classroom units set up but practicing skills in a structured scenario is hard to duplicate consistently. Use of force scenarios are often complicated to rehearse and practice in a safe environment.
Your training dept knows all the scenario outcomes you currently use: When trying to get the most out of your training, it is best to have the element of surprise on your side. If the trainees know exactly when and where the suspect will appear and have memorized the course, they are running on auto piolet- not training new skills.
You want more time back in your day: There are only so many hours in the day, and when you have to spend time dealing with broken equipment and the logistics of getting your team to the training facility it can be time consuming. Simulation training offers a way to have portable training or a designated room right in the station free from the elements and scheduling conflicts so your team can get the most out of their designated training time.
You need to save money: Between live fire training on the range, roleplaying with bad actors, simunitions with bulky protective gear, the dollars spent on use of force training can add up quickly. Having a way to train the team needs to be effective and cost proficient for a few cents per shot of C02 recoil vs. 30-40 cents per bullet in live fire training.
There’s pressure from your superiors to improve training NOW: When an Officer Involved Shooting happens, there can be pressure from the top down to improve training as soon as humanly possible. Not to mention, there is always the concern of having every action recorded and blasted on social media that can be a concern for community safety.
You need to track your team’s individual performance: The performance of each trainee is crucial to document if a case is brought against your team for failure to train. Being able to record things like reaction time, inherent bias, and marksmanship training is a key differentiator.
The current training is lackluster: To keep your community safe in the 21st century, you need advanced training to help you stay prepared for the unexpected. Classroom and range training are not enough to sustain your entire team for the future of your department. The right simulation training is exciting and has a proven correlation for retaining knowledge better than just classroom style learning alone.
Logistics are becoming a nightmare: Training on unique environments and at night, transporting the team and ammo to the range creates too much downtime for officers and trainees. Not to mention any issues with safety, environment or noise ordinances for your training location as the team continues to grow.
You want to protect your team: Without proper training, officers are bound to learn bad habit that can reflect badly on the agency. To build confidence in law enforcement training their training program should provide options to improve individual areas of weaknesses so that they can learn from their mistakes in a safe environment.
Sound Familiar?
If even as few as three out these nine statements apply to your agency in regards to your current training solution, it is time for an upgrade. VirTra has solutions to meet your training needs with simulation training which offers a way to condense and organize your training methods because you can train on a variety of skills such as verbal de-escalation, use of force, marksmanship, and inherent bias, just to name a few. Even better, the skills in these categories now come with V-VICTA® exclusively for our US-based law enforcement which provides IADLEST Certified training to have one less thing to worry about when it comes to training. Another benefit of simulation training from VirTra is that you can now get access to this training on a subscription called STEP. This new Subscription Training and Equipment Program option from VirTra offers a way to add new training for your team at a rate that you can manage on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. That way, you can focus the time and energy you used to waste on your outdated training and instead hone the skills of your team and their success in the field.
