ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Forensic and Legal Psychology
Exploring the Combat Mindset Approach During a Major Prison Riot
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Correctional Studies, Section for Security and Crime Prevention, University College of Norwegian Correctional Service, Lillestrøm, Norway
- 2Universitetet i Sorost-Norge USN Handelshoyskolen, Kongsberg, Norway
- 3Universitetet i Sorost-Norge - Campus Porsgrunn, Porsgrunn, Norway
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This autoethnographic study explores the mindset of prison officers in a prison riot in Oslo, Norway, addressing two research questions (RQs): RQ1: How does a prison officer's experience during a riot align with the concept of a well-functioning combat mindset? RQ2: Is there a need for more stressful training scenarios for prison officers to foster this mindset? To explore our two RQs, we analyzed a prison officer´s autoethnographic account of a full-scale riot. Findings indicate that the officer's experience of dealing with a situation with extreme stress supports the combat mindset concept, affirming the first research question. The study also concludes that extensive training is necessary to develop controlled aggression to the situation at hand, not resulting in serious injury. Training is crucial in order to manage high-stress situations effectively, supporting the second research question. This case study underscores the importance of a well-functioning combat mindset for security professionals, achieving balanced responses under extreme stress in order to deal with people who have the intention to harm others in frontline operations.
Keywords: combat mindset1, Decision making4, situational awareness3, Stress Management2, training methods5
Received: 04 Nov 2025; Accepted: 29 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Sørensen, Boe and Lund. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Knut Mellingsæter Sørensen
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