Police Employment- Why we need to change our standards

Like many decent paying, low skill jobs, interest in police employment has certainly reached a fevered pitch in the last few years, the result of a poor economy and the desire of some people to eat (the nerve!). Before we talk about the police hiring process that is failing us, I will start with a simple question:

What is law enforcement?

Many would go with the easy answer here, which is simply "enforcing the law". My experience as a law enforcement officer involved in many aspects of policing (including the hiring process) taught me pretty quickly that the answer is much more complex than this. A police job is about much more than driving around writing tickets and arresting people for violating the law.

The number one desirable trait in a law enforcement officer should be people skills. Unfortunately, the police hiring process lacks a good way to test for this. Most law enforcement agencies rely on psychological tests (a joke), polygraph (bigger joke) and the results of a poor background check that is outsourced to the lowest bidder. Nowhere in the hiring process is a person's reasoning skills or empathy tested, unless you count one of hundreds of multiple choice questions on a laughable psychological profile test.

The process

Before we go on I should add a disclaimer: not ALL law enforcement agencies have poor hiring standards, and not all police officers hired by agencies with lax standards are bad. Finally, the steps below are listed in no particular order since different agencies do things at different points in the hiring process.

Application/Polygraph/Background Investigation

I combined these three steps because they are all used together to vet police applicants. The purpose of the application is to gather answers for the upcoming polygraph and background check. If you have never completed a police application you may be shocked to find out how thorough it seems to be. It can take days to completely fill out a police application. Expect questions about your past habits, associations and acquaintances. The application, after passing an initial review, will end up in the hands of the polygrapher, where he or she will ask you more questions to further narrow down vague answers, finally resulting in a series of yes or no questions/answers.

The main problem with relying so heavily on the polygraph is that it lacks any basis in science for the detection of truth. The polygraph instead measures physiological responses to questions, such as heart rate, blood pressure and breathing patterns. It is preached by those who believe in this form of voodoo science that a change in some or all of these "indicators" means you are lying. The truth is, however, that once a person learns how to change some of these "indicators" on their own during routine baseline questions, the resulting changes while giving an untruthful answer look perfectly normal. To learn more about this simple method for "beating" a polygraph check out the website antipolygraph.org.

So it stands to reason, if the polygraph is so easy to "beat", why use it at all? The answer is simply because the investigator assigned to your application is too lazy to do a proper background check. The polygraph was designed, not to find truth, but to elicit confessions to crimes, many of which come about as the result of a fishing expedition.

The solution

The easiest way to get rid of the polygraph and the junk "science" behind it is to conduct proper background checks. Police departments should stop outsourcing this crucial step and allow trained police investigators to look into the background of applicants, since a person's past is a key indicator of how they will act and react in the future. For instance, the New York Police Department does this by sending police investigators to speak to not just the people you list on your application as references but neighbors, friends and friends-of-friends. If you want to discover a person's real character, go talk to his ex-girlfriend.

Psychological Screening

While this "test" may screen out some of the most die-hard sociopaths, a police psychological screening in its current form is another waste of time during the police hiring process, and its only purpose is to reduce liability during future lawsuits...something lawyers can point to to prove an employer acted with due diligence during the hiring process (thus reducing the chance of a successful "negligent hiring/retention" claim).

The police psychological exam typical consists of a written "test" with hundreds of "yes" or "no" answers, many of which are repeated in differing ways. Here are a few questions from an actual MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) exam:

•  My soul sometimes leaves my body
• At times I have fits of laughing & crying that I cannot control
• My hands and feet are usually warm enough (my wife would fail this one)
• Everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it would

When I was in the police application process this ridiculous "test" was followed up by an interview with some sort of mental health professional, who scored my test and asked my if I could shoot someone if I had to. Turns out I could.

The Solution

While I am certainly not against psychological screening for police recruits, I believe the application of standardized testing (more junk science) in the police hiring process presents yet another opportunity for an intelligent person to "beat the system". The MMPI-2 is a one-size-fits-all approach to vetting people entrusted with upholding our personal liberties. I believe people interested in a police job should be held to a higher standard than someone applying for an internship for an accounting agency. This should be a personalized experience designed to uncover the true nature of an applicant's psyche. These two steps, the background investigation and psychological screening, should be designed to weed out 90% or more of problem applicants. Instead they represent milestones in the hiring process and sailing through both of them often result in a "pass" in the last stage.

Interview

The final step in the police employment process is an interview (or series of interviews). This is not always done at the end of the hiring process, and sometimes occurs before the agency pays money for a polygraph, background investigation and psychological screen, but it is certainly the most important and often the most rushed part of the police hiring process.

It is here that the interviewer(s) should strive to learn the true character of the police applicant. The most important traits of a law enforcement officer should be honesty, empathy and the ability to interact positively with people from all walks of life.
Instead of using this important interview to find out if I could reason my way out of tense situations without beating the fuck out of someone, it was instead used to find out if I liked to drive fast or if I was lazy. Truthfully this should be a week-long process where the police applicant is paired with a police officer and allowed to interact with real people in real situations. This would provide far more insight into an applicant's character and allow administrators to see how he handles himself in both tense and routine situations. Instead, the interview determines whether or not the chief (or interview board for larger police departments) likes you.

To understand why our nation's police departments are riddled with lawsuits one need look no further than the hiring process. Character traits such as a short temper, rush to judgment and lack of empathy are not learned AFTER being hired. They were there the whole time but nobody bothered to look for them. Until we get serious about hiring the RIGHT people for this job we will continue to see police abuse our citizens' constitutional rights. It's up to us to push for positive change in our law enforcement agencies.