NTN FrontLine Police flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Active listening

A communication technique in which the listener gives full attention, reflects back key content and feelings, and asks clarifying questions to confirm understanding before responding.

De-escalation

A set of verbal and behavioral techniques aimed at reducing tension and the likelihood of violence, often by lowering voice volume, slowing speech, creating distance, and offering choices.

Procedural justice

A framework holding that people accept decisions more readily when authorities are perceived as fair, transparent, neutral, and respectful, and when they give people voice.

Open-ended question

A question that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no and invites the speaker to provide explanation, detail, or narrative, such as 'What happened next?'

Nonverbal cues

Observable behaviors such as posture, facial expression, gestures, eye contact, and body orientation that can signal comfort, stress, aggression, or deception but must be interpreted in context.

Use-of-force continuum

A model that pairs escalating levels of subject resistance with proportionate officer responses, emphasizing that force must be reasonable, necessary, and reduced as resistance decreases.

Bias awareness

The practice of recognizing how implicit attitudes, stereotypes, and situational factors can distort perception and judgment so that decisions are based on observed behavior and facts.

Scene safety

The ongoing assessment of threats, exits, bystanders, and available cover before and during contact, because no communication technique is effective if the officer is exposed to danger.

Main idea

The central point or most important message of a passage, often stated in a topic sentence or inferred from how details are organized and repeated throughout the text.

Inference

A conclusion drawn from evidence in the text combined with reasonable background knowledge, rather than a fact stated directly by the author.

Author's purpose

The reason a writer composed a text, such as to inform, persuade, entertain, or explain; identifying it helps determine which details are most significant.

Tone

The author's attitude toward the subject, conveyed through word choice, sentence structure, and emphasis, which may be neutral, critical, urgent, sympathetic, or humorous.

Chronological order

A text structure that presents events in the order they occurred, often signaled by words such as first, then, after, before, and finally.

Compare and contrast

A text structure that examines similarities and differences between two or more subjects, often using signal words such as like, unlike, both, whereas, and however.

Context clue

Information surrounding an unfamiliar word, such as a definition, example, contrast, or restatement, that helps a reader infer the word's meaning without a dictionary.

Scope

The range or boundary of what a passage covers, including the time period, people, topics, and level of detail; answers outside this range are not supported.

Subject-verb agreement

A grammatical rule requiring the verb to match the subject in number and person, as in 'the officer patrols' versus 'the officers patrol,' regardless of intervening phrases.

Pronoun-antecedent agreement

The rule that a pronoun must agree with the noun it refers to in number and gender, and that the reference must be clear enough to avoid ambiguity.

Run-on sentence

Two or more independent clauses joined without correct punctuation or a conjunction, which can be repaired with a period, semicolon, or comma plus coordinating conjunction.

Sentence fragment

A group of words punctuated as a sentence but lacking a subject, a finite verb, or a complete thought, such as 'Because the report was late.'

Comma splice

An error in which two independent clauses are joined only by a comma; it is corrected with a semicolon, a period, or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction.

Parallel structure

The use of matching grammatical forms for items in a list or comparison, as in 'interviewing, documenting, and testifying' rather than mixing infinitives, nouns, and gerunds.

Active voice

A sentence construction in which the subject performs the action, as in 'The officer wrote the report,' generally making writing clearer and more direct than passive voice.

Affect versus effect

Affect is usually a verb meaning to influence, while effect is usually a noun meaning a result; exceptions exist in specialized psychology and legal usage.

Order of operations

The standard sequence for evaluating expressions: parentheses, exponents, multiplication and division from left to right, then addition and subtraction from left to right.

Percent formula

To find a percent of a number, convert the percent to a decimal and multiply; for example, 15% of 80 equals 0.15 times 80, or 12.

Mean

The arithmetic average found by adding all values in a data set and dividing the sum by the number of values; it is sensitive to extreme outliers.

Ratio

A comparison of two quantities by division, often written as a fraction, with a colon, or with the word 'to'; ratios can be scaled by multiplying both terms equally.

Proportion

An equation stating that two ratios are equal, solved by cross-multiplying; for example, 3/4 = x/12 yields 4x = 36, so x = 9.

Distance formula

Distance equals rate multiplied by time, written d = rt; it can be rearranged to find rate as distance divided by time or time as distance divided by rate.

Area of rectangle

The number of square units inside a rectangle, calculated as length times width; for a 7-by-4 rectangle, the area is 28 square units.

Probability

The likelihood of an event, calculated as the number of favorable outcomes divided by the total number of equally likely outcomes, expressed as a fraction, decimal, or percent.