McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Police in America Chapter Five Police Officers: Entering Police Work

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Choosing Law Enforcement as a Career Motivations  Help people  Job security  Fight crime  Excitement of the job  Prestige of the job

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. The Personnel Process Shared with other governmental agencies Attracting a pool of applicants  Minimum qualifications  The recruitment effort  Applicant’s decision to apply

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Recruitment Minimum Qualifications  Most 21 years of age  Height and Weight  Education  62.9% high school diploma  22.6% require some college Criminal record  No felony  Misdemeanor? Residency  About ¼ of departments require living within the city limits

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Selection & Screening Method% Dept Using Personal interview97% Personal interview97% Criminal record check95 Criminal record check95 Background investigation94 Background investigation94 Driving record check90 Driving record check90 Medical exam82 Medical exam82 Psychological screen64 Psychological screen64 Drug test54 Drug test54 Written aptitude test46 Written aptitude test46 Physical agility test45 Physical agility test45 Polygraph exam18 Polygraph exam18 Voice stress analyzer2 Voice stress analyzer2

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Police Officer Performance The difficulty of predicting good police performance:  Screening Methods  Measuring Police Performance  Screening Efforts vs. Actual Job Performance

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Equal Employment Opportunity Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act  Race, color, religion, sex, or national origin  Protected class 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Equal opportunity Employment of Racial and Ethnic Minorities  Reflect the composition of the community it serves Hispanic and Latino officers  Fastest growing population  Spanish speaking officers recruited Women –More seriously underrepresented than racial or ethnic minorities –Concentrated in lower ranks Gay and Lesbian officers –Increasingly open over the last 20 years

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Diversity in Police Employment Diversity as a “compelling state interest” Affirmative Action  Executive Order (1965)  Affirmative Action Plans:  Conduct a census of current employees  Identify underutilization or concentration of minorities and women  Develop a recruiting plan to correct any underutilization Quotas Reverse Discrimination

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.Training Police Academy  Big departments have own academy  Small departments use state run academies Field training  FTO program  2/3 of departments use this process

McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. State Training and Certification  Every state has some form of mandated pre-service training for certification  State-required content of training  Decertification