12.3: Purpose of Candidate Testing

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Police officers are not ordained nor are they introduced to a heredity purification process which uniquely qualifies them for the tasks ahead in their careers. So then how can state and local agencies ensure they will be getting the best fit candidates to fill police positions? One topic of note is the ethical foundation the entry level police officer brings into the profession after preemployment scrutiny ought to equate to the organizational integrity as a result of eliminating the candidate that is not suitable for police work. According to Albanese (2012) and Pollock (2010), character is the building block of ethics and all ethics are learned behaviors.

The following content is from the author’s research that provides a best practice for prescreening of police officer candidates. Thus, attempting to demonstrate a significant relationship between the types of police candidate preemployment testing and the negative impact of such testing on disciplinary and termination actions due to ethical violations. Investigating the correlation between preemployment screening and predicting unethical behavior in police candidates is the main focus of the authors study. Volumes of existing literature indicate ethics is critical in policing but there is limited research to describe how ethical candidates are identified (Gardner, 1990; Ivkovic`, 2003 & 2005; Kotter, 2001; Kanungo, 2001; Kane, 2002; Kouzes & Posner, 2007; Kane & White, 2009; Wolfe & Piquero, 2011).

Previous studies have established that in many instances preemployment screening of police officer candidates occurs through such procedures such as background checks, truthfulness testing, and psychological testing that is related to uncovering pathological or criminal behavioral predictors of the candidates (Arrigo & Claussen, 2003; Banish & Ruiz, 2003). The literature is scant which examines the usefulness of the preemployment screening processes of police officer candidates in areas such as written examinations, background investigations, truthfulness testing, medical examination, and psychological testing in predicting likelihood of disciplinary or termination actions for ethical violations. Likewise, the existence of a best practice for preemployment screening of police officer candidates is absent in the literature. In essence what works and what does not work is not yet known. It is therefore important to investigate the prescreening process of officers hired over a ten-year period of prescreening candidates in comparison to the actual number of ethical violations resulting in a disciplinary hearing and/or termination.

Whitman (2013) maintains his work may be important to the policing industry as it may provide an effective correlational measurement of ethical profiling of candidates reducing liability for the police organization and leadership as well as reducing loss of costly and highly trained members of the police organization due to ethical violations. Police officer selection is paramount for the organizational and the community effectiveness, integrity, and legitimacy. The selection process is the first phase of developing organizational integrity and is likely the initial building block for developing future leaders within the police organization. Also vital to the integrity of each police agency is not only the proper hiring of personnel, but the retention, training and discipline of its members in order to maintain qualified members who will act ethically and responsibly (Vito, et al., 2011). This is further chief to ensure an adequate defense in the case of law suits against agencies. Whitman’s study is an investigation of existing practices of police agencies during the hiring phase (prescreening) and its negative impact on ethical violations of the police officer after hire. This quantitative investigative study was designed to research the correlation between the preemployment screening processes and examine which processes result in the least disciplinary actions.

These works of collective scholars provide the backdrop for this research in that deviant, criminal, and violent behavior predictors may require mining from multiple sources of the police officer candidates social setting, mental health, personality, and genetics in order to gain the most fit candidate for the police officer position. The outcome of ethical behavior is learned over a police officer candidate’s life-time and thus the theoretical framework selected as the best fit for this study is Akers Social Learning Theory.