PSYCHODRAMA TECHNIQUES IN TRAINING POLICE IN FAMILY CRISIS INTERVENTION

Abstract

In recent years domestic fights have become a serious hazard to many metro politan police departments. Frequently, it is the police who are assigned the responsibility for cross-monitoring the dimensions of family conflict and intervening during a family crisis. The "family disturbance call" currently represents the single most frequent source of injury and death to police officers (by national statistics). Any policeman knows that one of the most dangerous calls he must answer is the family quarrel, when bitter hot emotion erupts into violence, when injury is as close as a knife blade and when the despair of misery focuses suddenly on a blue uniform. However, despite the urgency of rendering family crisis services, relatively little has been done to train and increase the effectiveness of police officers in this critical area