The push for Jiu-Jitsu to be a core element police reform is gathering even more steam as a new bill has just been proposed in Michigan that would require all officers to achieve the rank of blue belt in BJJ. According to Fox 47 news, the bill is one of eleven that have been proposed in the state and is currently making it’s way through the legislative process. While the Michigan proposal is not quite as in-depth as Rener Gracie’s proposal for national police reform, it’s certainly a step in the right direction and if all officers were blue belts in BJJ then they would have taken hundreds of hours of physical training in the art.
Even if this bill is unsuccessful and the state decided to go in one of the ten other directions that they have available, this is still a huge moment for those who advocate for Jiu-Jitsu to be part of police training. This comes not long after Gracie Survival Tactics became the first BJJ curriculum to be approved for use by the police in the state of California, which was yet another big win for this movement. Around the same time, Marietta police department in Georgia conducted a long-term study to examine what effect training in BJJ had on policing and found that it provided a measurable improvement to the outcomes for both officers and suspects alike.
With how much support the idea is getting in several different states across America, it seems like just a matter of time before one of them takes the plunge and starts requiring BJJ training for officers. Once that happens, the hope is that it will create a domino effect and similar policies will be put in place everywhere else.
