B2.3. Case Study - Police and Rescue Training Methods

The European Institute of Police and Rescue Research has a long-running, internationally renowned research programme that seeks to discover which police and rescue training methods work best.

One part of this programme aims to discover whether training using real human cadavers is more effective than the alternatives in certain areas of police and rescue work. For instance, there is a growing (although still controversial) body of evidence suggesting that using real corpses (to represent the victims of terrorist bombings or other disasters) is the best way to teach people anti-terrorist and ‘catastrophic situation’ techniques.

One of the Institute’s experiments is as follows. One group of trainees is instructed to search clothed corpses for objects such as diaries, mobile phones, jewellery and keys to ensure that they are properly documented. Trainees are then asked to strip the bodies to look for scarring and other distinctive marks that could aid identification.

The second group of trainees goes through a similar process but using realistic mannequins instead of actual bodies. A third group receives classroom-based training only. The different groups’ performances are later tested and comparatively evaluated using a well-established proprietary assessment tool. (The methodology of this experiment has been subjected to external peer review and accepted.)

Other similar experiments use corpses to assess different search training techniques. These involve, amongst other things, human body parts being buried and then searched for by trainees.

The corpses used by the Institute come from the nearby University Hospital. Prior to their deaths, all of the deceased persons involved gave general consent, in writing, for the use of their bodies for “research, training and education”.

Questions:

1. Ethically, does it matter that the consent given by the deceased persons was rather general and that they may not have known that their bodies would, or could, be used in the study described above? Would it have been morally better to give them more detail?

2. If valid consent was given by the deceased persons for their bodies to be used in this research would that allay all of your concerns about the research? Or would there be residual worries about using bodies in this way?

3. What sort of consent to take part in the trial (if any) ought the researchers to seek from the trainees?

4. Ought relatives of the deceased persons to be involved at all and, if so, at what stage and how?