Tearing Down the Wall: Problems with Consistency, Validity, and Adverse Impact of Physical Agility Testing in Police Selection

• Author: Kimberly A. Lonsway
• Published date: 01 September 2003
• Date: 01 September 2003
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1098611103254314
• Subject Matter: Journal Article

10.1177/1098611103254314ARTICLEPOLICE QUARTERLY (Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2003)Lonsway / PHYSICAL AGILITY TESTING

TEARING DOWN THE WALL:

PROBLEMS WITH CONSISTENCY,

VALIDITY, AND ADVERSE IMPACT

OF PHYSICAL AGILITY TESTING

IN POLICE SELECTION

KIMBERLY A. LONSWAY

National Center for Women & Policing

This article examines the literature on the physical demands of police work,

the use of physical agility testing in police selection, and women’s perfor-

mance as police officers. A survey was conducted with 62 police agencies

regardingtheir physical agility test and the representation of sworn women.

Results indicate that the vast majority (89%) of agencies use some form of

physical agility testing for entry-level selection, and agencies with a test

have 31% fewer sworn women than agencies without such a test (15.8% vs.

10.9%). Results also demonstrate a striking lack of agreementregarding the

physical capabilities that should be tested and the standards that should be

used to evaluate successful performance. In light of these results, women’s

proven ability to perform as police officers, and the legal requirements of

preemployment testing, the article concludes by reviewing alternatives for

physical agility testing in police officer selection.

Keywords: police; training; selection; adverse impact; discrimination

The job of policing is widely assumed to require a great deal of physical

prowess (Ash, Slora, & Britton, 1990; Carmean, 1984; Charles, 1982, 1983;

This research was undertaken by the National Center for Women& Policing, a division of the Feminist

Majority Foundation, where the author serves as research director.The author would like to gratefully

acknowledge the contributions of Chief Penny Harrington, Katherine Spillar,Margaret Moore, Sharyn

Tejani, and Hannah Dupes. Correspondence may be addressed to the author at 1136 Fuller Road, San

Luis Obispo, CA 93401; e-mail: klonsway@charter.net.

POLICE QUARTERLY Vol. 6 No. 3, September 2003 237–277

DOI: 10.1177/1098611103254314

© 2003 Sage Publications

Evans, 1980; Greenberg & Berger, 1983; Lilley & Greenberg, 1984;

Moulson-Litchfeld & Freedson, 1986; Stanish, Wood,& Campagna, 1999).

Physical strength is described as necessary for such tasks as “chasing and

wrestling suspects into submission, intervening in physical disputes, and

pulling victims from wrecked vehicles” (Charles, 1982, p. 196). At the same

time, a voluminous body of research documents the sedentary nature of

police work and poor physical fitness among law enforcement personnel

(Charles, 1982; Faulkner, 1994; Gaines, Falkenberg, & Gambino, 1993;

Moulson-Litchfeld & Freedson, 1986; Wilmore & Davis, 1979; Wood,

Kreitner, Friedman, Edwards, & Sova, 1982).

In fact, some havenoted that “the normal sedentary nature of the officer’s

job leads to a rapid deterioration in physical fitness (Wilmore & Davis,

1979, p. 37; emphasis added; also see Gaines et al., 1993; Moulson-

Litchfeld & Freedson, 1986). Therefore, “the crux of the problem with

regard to physical strength centers around those infrequent critical incidents

requiring a large reserve of strength and fitnesson the part of individual offi-

cers” (Charles, 1982, p. 196). The purpose of this article is to analyze this

“crux of the problem” by reviewing the existing literature on the actual

physical demands of police work and the use of physical agility testing in

police selection, before presenting original data on the negative effect that

physical agility testing1has on the representation of sworn women. This

research suggests that there is no consistency in the physical agility tests

used by police agencies across the country and that evidence regarding their

validity is almost completely lacking. When this lack of consistency and

validity is combined with the documented negative effect on women’s rep-

resentation, it calls into question the need for and legality of physical agility

testing protocols used by most police agencies.

NEGATIVE EFFECT OF PHYSICAL

AGILITY TESTING ON WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION

Until the late 1970s, many police agencies used minimal height require-

ments and weight standards as part of their selection criteria. For example,

the International Association of Chiefs of Police reported in 1956 that 85%

of departments surveyed had a height requirement of at least 5-foot-8

(Gaines et al., 1993). These standards screened out a disproportionate num-

ber of women from the selection process but failed to predict either the

safety or successful performance of officers in terms of injuries, citizen

complaints, accidents, assaults, and commendations (Evans, 1980). The

238 POLICE QUARTERLY (Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2003)

courts therefore rejected height and weight standards as discriminatory

under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In Dothard v. Rawlinson

(1977), the Supreme Court stated that physical strength or ability cannot be

assessed indirectly through height and weight standards: “If the job-related

quality that the appellants identify is indeed bona fide, their purpose could

be achieved by adopting and validating a test for applicants that measures

strength directly” (p. 322).

Since that time, physical agility tests have largely replaced the old height

and weight standards as a screening device for police officer candidates

(Birzer & Craig, 1996; Hogan & Quigley, 1986; Maher, 1984). Surveys

document that 67% to 80% of city police departments and 84% to 91% of

state police agencies use physical agility testing as part of their selection

process (Ash et al., 1990; Gaines et al., 1993; International City Managers

Association, 1990; Townsey, 1992). Unfortunately, these tests typically

have a negativeimpact on women, with failure rates that are disproportion-

ately higher than those of men.

For example, Hernandez (1981, as cited in Birzer & Craig, 1996) ana-

lyzed the passing rates of 1,181 applicants for deputy sheriff and found that

93% of male but only 16% of female applicants passed the physical ability

test. Birzer and Craig (1996) similarly reported that 93% of the male but

only 28% of the female applicants passed the physical agility test for a mid-

western city department over a 9-year period of time. In an early court case,

the city of Columbus was sued for gender discrimination on a test that

passed 73.8% of the men and only 2.4% of the women (Brant v.Columbus,

1978).

In fact, the negativeeffect of physical agility testing on women is often so

severe that some commentators have speculated that its very purpose is to

screen out female applicants (Birzer & Craig, 1996; Evans, 1980; Gaines

et al., 1993). This notion is supported by data collected by the Police Foun-

dation suggesting that agencies with physical agility tests have a relatively

lower representation of women (Townsey, 1992). It is further buttressed

with evidence that the Queensland Police Service in Australia saw a “sub-

stantial drop in female recruitment” following the implementation of a

physical agility test in 1994 (Prenzler, 1996, p. 318). To that extent,

police practitioners, academicians, and the courts have speculated that a hidden

agenda for the physical ability selection test is really to invokean acceptable form of

the old height and weight standards, rather than to measure the physical strength and/

or ability of police applicants. (Birzer & Craig, 1996, p. 93)

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