The Schubert Center supports developmentally-informed police practices and the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s statement on Use of Force.
The Schubert Center for Child Studies has been an active partner in seeking to improve police-youth interactions, including developing crisis intervention, de-escalation and use of force policies for the Cleveland Division of Police in response to the Cleveland Consent Decree. Recognizing how children and young people are developmentally different from adults and how these differences can impact police-youth interactions, our center’s policy recommendations focus on the importance of age-appropriate responses, use of discretion, environmental context, and use of a proportional force continuum to mitigate the use of force with young people.