ICAT training shows mixed results

Louisville Metro Police’s ICAT evaluation and New Jersey’s statewide reform study point in different directions on whether de-escalation training reduces force. The Louisville study, conducted by researchers at the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the University of Cincinnati, found significant reductions in uses of force, citizen injuries and officer injuries after ICAT-style training. New Jersey’s larger evaluation, led by the National Policing Institute and the University of Cincinnati, found no uniform statewide decline after a 2020 reform package that included mandatory ICAT de-escalation training and ABLE peer-intervention training. From 2021 to 2024, statewide use-of-force reports rose about 9.5%, alongside increases in arrests and serious offenses, according to the institute’s executive brief. (theiacp.org) That split is why ICAT is now discussed less as a simple yes-or-no fix than as a program whose results appear to depend on agency context, implementation and measurement. The National Policing Institute said “agency variation is the rule,” while its own explainer said de-escalation is “not a magic solution on its own” and must be supported by policy, culture and sustained reinforcement. (policinginstitute.org) ### What is ICAT, exactly? ICAT stands for Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics, a de-escalation training model promoted in policing as a way to slow encounters, create time and distance, improve communication and reduce the need for force. The International Association of Chiefs of Police describes it as part of a broader set of de-escalation resources for agencies. The National Policing Institute defines de-escalation as actions officers take during a potential force encounter to stabilize the situation and reduce the immediacy of the threat so that more time, options and resources can be used. (policinginstitute.org) Its 2025 explainer lists calm communication, clear warnings, physical distance and added resources among the common tactics. ### Why do Louisville supporters keep citing that study? (theiacp.org) The Louisville Metro Police Department evaluation is one of the best-known findings cited by ICAT supporters because it linked training to measurable behavioral changes, not just officer attitudes. The IACP resource page says the Louisville work was the first known study to show significant changes in officer behavior directly attributable to de-escalation training. The Louisville reports are often summarized publicly as showing roughly a 28% drop in force incidents after ICAT-style training, along with lower citizen and officer injuries. (policinginstitute.org) The underlying official materials available through the National Policing Institute and IACP characterize the findings as reductions in force and injuries, even if short summaries do not always present the same topline figure in the excerpted text. (theiacp.org) ### What did the New Jersey study find? New Jersey’s reform package was announced in December 2020 by the state attorney general’s office and applied to more than 500 departments and over 31,000 officers, according to the National Policing Institute. The evaluation examined statewide data from 2018 to 2024 and officer survey responses in the tens of thousands. (policinginstitute.org) The institute found that officers reported favorable shifts in attitudes after training, including on use of force and responses to people in crisis. But it also found that mandated training did not produce direct statewide reductions in use of force or officer injuries, and that where statistically significant changes appeared, increases were more common than decreases. (policinginstitute.org) ### Where does the NYPD argument fit in? NYPD publishes annual use-of-force reports and underlying force data tables, which critics of de-escalation programs use to argue that training does not guarantee lower force totals. The department’s reports and dashboards show force data by year, injuries and incident categories, though the specific “40% rise in officer assaults” claim cited in social-media debate was not directly verified in the official NYPD materials reviewed here. (policinginstitute.org) That matters because it separates two different claims: whether a department’s force numbers rose, and whether ICAT itself caused the increase. The New Jersey study explicitly warns against broad statewide conclusions from mixed local outcomes, and the NYPD data on its own does not establish causation. ### So what can departments actually conclude? The strongest common point across the official research is that attitude change is easier to show than behavior change. (nyc.gov) The New Jersey evaluation found officers became more receptive to de-escalation concepts, while the Louisville evaluation found force and injury reductions in one department under a more controlled design. (policinginstitute.org) For departments deciding whether to adopt or expand ICAT-style training, the practical lesson from the published research is to track local outcomes closely: force incidents, officer injuries, subject injuries, arrests, call types and implementation fidelity. The National Policing Institute says results were mixed and place-specific, and the IACP frames evaluation as part of the de-escalation model itself. (policinginstitute.org 1) (policinginstitute.org 2)