(Archive) Ontwapens

Soft weapons to disarm

How can we motivate police officers to use nonviolent approaches when a situation threatens to escalate? This question was central to the collaboration between these makers: a neighbourhood police officer from Gouda and Rotterdam’s SMELT design studio as part of the Social Design Police programme. Together, they developed a series of ‘Ontwapens’ (a wordplay on ‘Disarms’). These are personally designed strategies for police officers that can be used to de-escalate a situation. Ontwapens are always a mix of an officer's personal qualities, their appearance and general strategies in making contact with people, such as listening. The Ontwapens are designed as an object and thus as concrete as the weapons hanging on a police officer’s belt. This enables police officers to take directed and deliberate de-escalating actions, in collaboration with their colleagues, in threatening situations.