Managing conflict in a professional policing context

What the unit covers

Managing conflict in a professional policing context is unit 3 of the SFJ Awards Level 5 Diploma in Professional Policing Practice, worth 22 credits. The handbook describes its purpose as equipping learners to manage conflict in a policing environment and to apply personal safety techniques with issued equipment, handling volatile situations while keeping themselves and others safe.

There are two learning outcomes. The first is understanding: the situations in which conflict arises and the corresponding levels of response, the ethical and moral implications of police using force, the techniques for managing an incident, maintaining order and de-escalating, the medical consequences that can follow force, restraint and personal safety equipment (positional asphyxia is named), and why actions must be documented and debriefed after protective equipment or restraints have been used. The second is practical: making threat assessments from all available information, using approved communication to de-escalate, recognising danger and warning signs, choosing proportionate options, using personal protection equipment and physical and mechanical restraints within legal and organisational requirements, and recording and reporting every action and decision.

The apprenticeship standard (ST0304) carries the same ground as duty 4, managing conflict in a professional policing context, and as skill 5, managing dynamic conflict through leadership while taking personal accountability for proportionate and justifiable responses.

The law and procedure behind it

This summary follows the site's own pages linked under Read on this site, which carry the section and Code citations; the sources listed above are the training documents, not the Acts. Read the Act or Code before relying on any point here.

Two statutory provisions do most of the work. Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 permits any person to use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances to prevent crime or to effect a lawful arrest. Section 117 of PACE 1984 adds that where PACE confers a power on a constable, reasonable force may be used if necessary in exercising it. Whether force was reasonable is judged on the circumstances as the officer honestly believed them to be, not with hindsight; a genuine but mistaken belief can still support a lawful use of force. Article 2 of the European Convention, through the Human Rights Act 1998, adds that lethal force must be no more than absolutely necessary.

Equipment and restraint sit inside that framework rather than under separate powers. No statute specifically authorises handcuffs: their use is a use of force that must be justified by a risk of violence or escape, and the fact of arrest does not justify it on its own. Taser is classified as a firearm under the Firearms Act 1968 and may only be carried by officers authorised by their chief constable; PAVA spray is the usual incapacitant. PACE Code A requires that any force during a stop and search is reasonable and proportionate, and the College of Policing expects the National Decision Model to be applied before any force. Prone restraint carries a known risk of positional asphyxia, which is why the unit treats the medical consequences as knowledge to be evidenced.

Conflict also produces offences on both sides. Assault on an emergency worker, assault with intent to resist arrest, and obstruction of a constable under section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996 are the usual charges against a person who turns on an officer. The Public Order Act 1986 provides the graded ladder from riot down to section 5, and breach of the peace at common law gives a power of arrest where violence is happening or imminent. Use of force is one of the ten Standards of Professional Behaviour in the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020.

Read on this site

Powers

• Use of Reasonable Force for PACE Powers
• Entry to Prevent Breach of the Peace

Offences

• Assault on Emergency Worker
• Assault with Intent to Resist Arrest
• Obstruction of a Police Officer
• Affray
• Threatening Behaviour
• Disorderly Behaviour
• Drunk and Disorderly in a Public Place

PACE

• PACE Code A: Stop and Search

Rights

• What is Reasonable Force?
• Can Police Use Tasers?
• Can Police Use Force to Arrest You?
• Can Police Handcuff You Without Arresting You?

Glossary

• Use of force
• Proportionality
• National Decision Model (NDM)
• Taser / conducted energy device
• PAVA spray
• Positional asphyxia
• Spit and bite guard
• Breach of the peace
• Section 5 Public Order Act
• Standards of Professional Behaviour

Knowledge

• Proportionality in the Use of Force
• Restraint and Handcuffs: Legal and Practical Framework
• Key Cases on Police Use of Force
• Public Order Offences: The Hierarchy

Legislation

• Criminal Law Act 1967
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Public Order Act 1986

Aide-memoires

• PLAN and PLANE
• JAPAN

Where it sits in training

The College of Policing's 2026 joining guide gives three milestones common to every route: initial off-the-job learning within five to six months, a tutored patrol phase within ten months, and full operational competence at around two years. Personal safety training with issued equipment belongs to the first of these, since a recruit cannot patrol until trained to use it, and the practical criteria in this unit are then evidenced on tutored and independent patrol.

Under the SFJ handbook, the performance criteria of every unit are assessed only after the learner has achieved Independent Patrol Status, with each performance criterion evidenced on at least two occasions and each knowledge criterion at least once in the Operational Competence Portfolio. The handbook maps this unit's practical criteria to the Independent Patrol Status criteria. On the Police Constable Entry Programme the whole programme is delivered by the force over two years, ending with a substantive constable at full operational competence.