The Triumph of Techniques Over Purpose Revisited

• Published date: 01 September 2001
• Date: 01 September 2001
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X0102100304
• Subject Matter: Articles

REVIEWOFPUBLICPERSONNELADMINISTRATION / Fall 2001

Pynes/EVALUATINGPOLICEOFFICER SELECTION

The Triumph of Techniques

Over Purpose Revisited

Evaluating Police Officer Selection

JOAN E. PYNES

University of South Florida

This article examines the tension that often arises between the values of public

personnel administration and the technical/psychometric characteristics found

in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection. It is recommended that

selection examinations for police officers move beyond focusing on logical-mathe-

matical skills and expand to include additional individual variables that affect

behavior in organizations. A comprehensive review and reassessment of police

officer recruitment, selection, training, supervision, and evaluation is needed.

This article is part of the symposium titled “Keeping Selection Legal and

Professional—Are the Uniform Guidelines Still Helpful?” These guide-

lines have remained unchanged since 1978. This article will discuss the ten-

sion that arises between the values of public personnel administration and the

technical/psychometric characteristics found in the Guidelines (1978). The

context of this discussion will center on entry-level police selection.

Police selection is important to public administrators because approxi-

mately 61% of a local government’s budget is spent on law enforcement

operations (Bureau of the Census, 1993). In 1992 alone, more than 29 bil-

lion dollars were spent in direct expenditures and intergovernmentalexpen-

ditures by local governments (U.S. Department of Justice, 1996). Public

safety officers are often the most visible employees of local governments.

Unqualifiedofficers, officers inappropriately trained, and officers subject to

lax supervision place a local government at risk. Most of us are familiar with

the police scandals in Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia,

Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Approximately 70 Los

Angeles police department (LAPD) officers were investigated for either

committing crimes or knowing about crimes and helping to cover them up.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan recommended that $300 million in

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tobacco settlement money be diverted to pay the cost of resolving lawsuits

that arose from the LAPD’s Rampart Division investigation. In addition to

the financial costs, hundreds of convictions may be overturned as the LA

police officers involved in the corruption and misconduct investigation are

disciplined or criminally charged and their credibility damaged (Lait,

Glover, & Daunt, 2000; Newton & Daunt, 2000).

Typically, large-scale urban police scandals receive the most publicity.

However, police scandals also exist in smaller jurisdictions; they just don’t

receive national attention. The public’s loss of confidence in their local gov-

ernments and the legal and economic liability involved with civil lawsuits

make this an important topic for public administrators.

Different Perspectives

In 1996, Robert Jordan and 62 other test takers were denied employ-

ment as police officers in New London, Connecticut, because they scored

too high on the Wonderlic Intelligence Test. New London’s assistant city

manager told Mr. Jordanthat “we don’t like to hire people with too high an

IQ to be cops in this town....There is nothing more boring than driving

around in a police cruiser all day and no one with any smarts would want to

do the job” (“Real Smart,” 1999, p. 8). Mr. Jordan scored 33 out of 50

points on the test. The average score for all workers is 21, reporters’ average

score is 27, attorneys’ average score is 29, and the recommended score for

police officers falls in the range between 20 and 27. Jordan protested the

decision but U. S. District Judge PeterDorsey upheld the city’s position in

1999.

While the city of New London was rejecting applicants because they

were too intelligent, Nassau County, the U. S. Department of Justice

(DOJ), and prominent Industrial Organizational (I/O) psychologists were

accused of developing an entry-level police exam that minimized cognitive

components important to the job of police officer.

Although debate over police officer selection examinations is not new

(Aamodt, 1997; Burbeck & Furnham, 1985; Carter & Sapp,1992; Gaines,

Costello & Crabtree, 1989; Gaines & Falkenberg,1998; Hirsh, Northrop &

Schmidt, 1986; Poland, 1978; Pynes, 1994; Schacter, 1979; Spielberger,

1979), it has been escalated through a series of editorials in the Wall Street

Journal (Gottfredson, 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Schmidt, 1996a,

1996b), a special report in Law and Order (Rachlin, 1997a, 1997 b, 1997c)

and postings to the International Personnel Management Association

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