The center of gravity in law enforcement training is moving.

As agencies roll into a new year, training priorities are tightening around real-world demands, emerging risks, and practical constraints. Here’s MILO’s take on what’s likely to gain momentum in 2026, and what’s losing ground.

 

What’s Hot

Campus and healthcare public safety

With the dramatic increase in violent incidents on educational campuses and in hospitals, colleges, universities, and healthcare systems are expanding their public safety footprint to address student and patient safety, workplace violence, and executive protection concerns.

Training emphasis in 2026 is expected to increase for campus police, hospital-based officers, and lay responders—including volunteers—who operate in complex, high-liability environments with constant public interaction and limited tolerance for error.

 

Collaborative multi-agency/co-responder training

Local and state agencies are spending more time training alongside mental health professionals, federal response teams, and community partners. Whether it’s in response to natural disasters or shifts in federal policy, local response is no longer isolated. Federal frameworks such as the National Incident Management System (NIMS)—which guides interoperable operations and training across local, state, tribal, and federal partners—are shaping how agencies coordinate and prepare together.

 

Situational awareness and observational training

Local and state agencies are placing renewed emphasis on situational awareness and observation skills because threat profiles are shifting rapidly. Federal reporting shows that recoveries of privately made firearms (“ghost guns”) have surged nationwide, with 92,702 such weapons recovered by law enforcement between 2017 and 2023 according to a Department of Justice/ATF assessment.

Training in 2026 will increasingly focus on what officers notice, how quickly they recognize deviations from baseline conditions, and how those observations inform decision-making before situations escalate.

 

What’s Not

New shiny objects

Interest in new tools and technology hasn’t slowed, but tolerance for technology without a clear operational purpose has. Agencies, including the military, are becoming more selective about what they adopt, focusing on whether a tool solves a real problem, fits existing workflows, and can be trained efficiently under staffing and time constraints.

Feedback from officers reinforces that sentiment. In a recent infographic from Police1, officers emphasized that new technology only adds value when it directly supports decision-making and real-world conditions, particularly during traffic stops and other high-risk, high-frequency encounters. Tools that add complexity without improving clarity or safety are increasingly viewed as more trouble than they’re worth.

 

Wasted training

Staffing shortages and compressed schedules are forcing agencies to make hard choices about how training time is used. Resource-intensive activities, including personnel-heavy role play, and programs that exist primarily to satisfy a requirement—without improving judgment, performance, or confidence—are increasingly difficult to justify.

While the Bureau of Justice Assistance continues to emphasize training effectiveness, skill development, and outcome-focused approaches over completion-based metrics, recent reductions in U.S. Department of Justice grant funding have raised the stakes. When resources tighten, training has to earn its place. If it doesn’t change behavior or support real decision-making, it becomes expendable.

 

Treating all behavioral mental health calls the same

Agencies are moving away from lumping all behavioral and mental health calls into a single category. Officers are encountering a wide range of situations (autism-related behaviors, substance use, cognitive impairment, acute psychiatric crisis) that require different responses.

Federal health and justice guidance increasingly supports differentiated response models. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration outlines crisis systems that emphasize appropriate matching of response to need, rather than one default de-escalation intervention. Scenario-based training is beginning to reflect this nuance with scenarios designed by focused experts.

 

Meeting Evolving Training Needs Will Always Be MILO’s Priority

Effective training reflects the human limits officers operate within and adapts as those demands change. In 2026, agencies are leaning toward training systems and technologies that can evolve alongside policy updates, equipment changes, and shifting operational realities.

At MILO, that focus starts with understanding how officers train today and staying responsive as those needs continue to change. Training that stays adaptive will remain relevant, defensible, and useful long after it’s delivered.