Knew a guy in high school, biggest B.S. flinger. Fast forward several years. Riding my motorcycle one day when I hear a siren yelp, look in my mirror, cop car behind me. I pull over, guess who gets out of the car? Yep. He recognized me a couple traffic lights back, I never paid attention to his sitting alongside me. Found out later that he had changed departments as least a couple times as one of my friends had occasional contact with him.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I know I didn’t pass mine, but the hiring/background guy said people with former law enforcement experience won’t pass a psych eval due to the job and experience.

The figure I always heard was that after 2-3 years, you wouldn't be able to pass the psych

I knew a number of guys who failed the first time around, then applied somewhere else and passed and got hired. Explain that one to me.

One of my good buddies was a reserve officer with my department (before I worked there) and was trying to get a full-time job at a different local agency. He failed their psych eval and didn't get hired. A year later he applied at the US Border Patrol and got hired (passed a psych eval to get on there, too). He's been there almost 20 years now, is a supervisor, has had a very successful career, is still married to his first wife, and has a great family life.

There were a couple of guys in my academy class with the same experience. They kept putting in apps and taking the test with different agencies until somebody finally picked them up. I'm not sure what happened with them over the long term, but clearly the whole psych eval is subjective pseudoscience. If you can take it multiple times and fail once but pass another, or fail and then go on to have a long and successful career, how is this in any way an accurate assessment of your fitness to be an officer?

It isn't. It's just an excuse for them to not hire someone they for whatever reason, they do not like. It gives them an out. In Chicago there was a time in which the City would not hire you if you already had a relative on the job. That is now all in the past but they used the failure of a candidate pass the psych exam for not hiring someone. My BIL who was on the job, oldest son took the test years ago. Flunked the test. My BIL retired and the nephew retook the test years later. Passed wth flying colors. It's all BS.

I don’t have any experience with a pre-LE employment psychological exam, but it’s not simply a determination of whether someone is mentally unstable and going to start shooting up the station house. These traits that the exam might explore are from one site that gives guidance about passing such exams:

Impulse control
Judgment
Reasonable courage
Honesty
Integrity
Lack of bias
Ability to tolerate stress
Dependability
Ability to deal with supervision
Appropriate attitudes towards sexuality

The site specifically says, “It is NOT… A test of your overall ‘sanity’ or mental stability.”

As I say, I have no personal experience with taking such an exam or ever having relied on the results of someone else’s exam, but I admit to having a somewhat knee-jerk response to some of what such exams are purported to determine (similar to my beliefs about polygraph exams whose results I have had fairly extensive experience with).

It strikes me that psychologists hired to conduct examinations for law enforcement agencies are in a similar position as lawyers for government agencies: It’s far better for them to say “no” to an action or hire and be wrong and say “yes” and be wrong. If a lawyer is asked, “Can we do this?” and he says “yes,” what if he’s wrong? Serious consequences can result and who will everyone be looking at when that happens?

But what if he says “no”? If the agency doesn’t do what they were considering, then no one will ever know if it could have been okay for it to do. If, however, they do it anyway and it goes badly, the lawyer can say, “I told you so.” And even if they do it and nothing bad happens, no one is likely to remember what the lawyer said, but if they do, he can easily cite the reasons for his advice and who will be able to say that his advice was unreasonable? Only another lawyer, and how likely is that? (Such “no” advice I saw given many times myself during my Army career.)

I can see a psychologist being in the same position: Fail a suitable candidate and the agency will never know if they lost out on a good recruit. Pass someone who turns out to be unsuitable, and then, “Why did you approve this guy?” Just like lawyers there may be a limit to how many “no” responses are acceptable, but the worst that will happen is the agency will look for someone else to give advice.

Anyway, just my somewhat uninformed thoughts, so I am curious to know other opinions about the exams’ validity and value.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I don’t have any experience with a pre-LE employment psychological exam, but it’s not simply a determination of whether someone is mentally unstable and going to start shooting up the station house. These traits that the exam might explore are from one site that gives guidance about passing such exams:

Impulse control
Judgment
Reasonable courage
Honesty
Integrity
Lack of bias
Ability to tolerate stress
Dependability
Ability to deal with supervision
Appropriate attitudes towards sexuality

The site specifically says, “It is NOT… A test of your overall ‘sanity’ or mental stability.”

I think this list is pretty accurate… the test I took, in my uneducated opinion, was certainly trying to root out bias based on race and gender. I remember the test feeling like it asked the same handful of questions 75 times each in several different ways. I imagine that is useful in finding those trying to suppress/hide an undesirable bias.

What the test seems to miss most often, based upon my career seeing new employees, is a desire to be in power/authority. People who really cherish being in power over others don’t make great corrections officers yet we get a lot of those on the job.

Ahhh.. The good old MMPI!

quote:

Originally posted by Tonydec:

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I never heard of anyone who didn’t get hired bc of a psych eval.

I was involved in backgrounds during one of my assignments in detectives. We washed a lot of candidates because of results during the psych evals.

I handled all the backgrounds and physical/psych testing for my department for years.

There are definitely folks who wash out.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I remember the test feeling like it asked the same handful of questions 75 times each in several different ways.

That's quite literally what the MMPI psych test is. It asks the same/similar questions multiple different ways over the course of the 450ish total questions, as it's near-impossible for someone who's faking/lying to keep their lies straight over the course of hours and hundreds of multiple choice questions.

In the results, some of the things it rates is consistency, validity, and honesty in taking the test. Providing inconsistent answers to the same reworded questions, or to similar questions, shows up there.

Good post Sigfreund. It's based on predictability. They are looking for "known" factors of traits that don't trend for successful outcomes. Different things are looked for depending on the job. Granted, it is just an educated guess, and there are always those that buck trends.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
I knew a number of guys who failed the first time around, then applied somewhere else and passed and got hired. Explain that one to me.

That is one of the easiest question to answer about the testing process.

There aren't uniform qualities that the departments are looking for. Each department sets sets out the qualities they are looking for or trying to avoid

quote:

One of my good buddies was a reserve officer with my department (before I worked there) and was trying to get a full-time job at a different local agency. He failed their psych eval and didn't get hired. A year later he applied at the US Border Patrol and got hired (passed a psych eval to get on there, too). He's been there almost 20 years now, is a supervisor, has had a very successful career, is still married to his first wife, and has a great family life.

A couple of points jump out immediately, USBP test for very different qualities as opposed to municipal agencies. Also the qualities that make a good supervisor aren't always the same they make a good "street officer"

I know 3 supervisors who I worked under who were horrible street officers, but were pretty god supervisors. One was good enough to raise to the rank of Captain, but was known to be pretty unless on a "hot call" while on the street.

The fact that your buddy is still married to his first wife and has a great family life , is pretty indicative that he is an outlier. Interestingly, I thought I read somewhere that the BP has the lowest rate of divorce among major LEAs

quote:

If you can take it multiple times and fail once but pass another, or fail and then go on to have a long and successful career, how is this in any way an accurate assessment of your fitness to be an officer?

It isn't about fitness to be an officer. It's about cultural fit.

In the private industry they have multiple interviews with a prospective hires to see how they fit in the corporate culture

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
What the test seems to miss most often, based upon my career seeing new employees, is a desire to be in power/authority. People who really cherish being in power over others don’t make great corrections officers yet we get a lot of those on the job.

Unfortunately those qualities happen to mirror the qualities for folks who have a strong sense of right vs. wrong.

LE has a tendency to attract folks who either feel that they need to "right wrongs" or "rescuers"

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I remember the test feeling like it asked the same handful of questions 75 times each in several different ways.

That's quite literally what the MMPI psych test is. It asks the same/similar questions multiple different ways over the course of the 450ish total questions, as it's near-impossible for someone who's faking/lying to keep their lies straight over the course of hours and hundreds of multiple choice questions.

In the results, some of the things it rates is consistency, validity, and honesty in taking the test. Providing inconsistent answers to the same reworded questions, or to similar questions, shows up there.

Ah yes, the famous MMPI.

It can be a quite entertaining test when you understand the objective and the process.

It is pretty entertaining to see how many takers can't keep their answers straight over a few hundred questions...of course, that's the whole point of the test

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
Ahhh.. The good old MMPI!

Mere mention of the MMPI makes my soul want to leave my body.

If you think doing backgrounds on LE applicants reveals some messed up stuff, try doing them on attorneys!

quote:

Originally posted by DetonicsMk6:

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
Ahhh.. The good old MMPI!

Mere mention of the MMPI makes my soul want to leave my body.

If you think doing backgrounds on LE applicants reveals some messed up stuff, try doing them on attorneys!

I did a side-job in a law office (contract law done by about 70% short-term contract lawyers).

NO THANKS!!!!
I've never seen that much "crazy" and "dysfunctional" in one office!

And the MMPI isn't that bad. I took it 4 times. IIRC- about 1400 - 1800 questions.
Just prepare for a long day.