Asking the Tough Question : Should Police Officers Be Periodically Evaluated Psychologically After They Are Hired?

Allegations this year that several police officers and sheriff’s deputies in San Diego County committed serious crimes, including murder, robbery and rape, raised the question of whether police officers should undergo periodic psychological testing. State law requires pre-employment psychological testing.

In the San Diego Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department, officers also are evaluated psychologically if they have been involved in a shooting or if there is strong behavioral evidence of psychological problems. In addition, the Sheriff’s Department requires that SWAT officers be evaluated annually.

Last week, San Diego County Sheriff Jim Roache sponsored a symposium on the subject with experts from around the state. After the symposium, The Times asked several panelists to summarize their thoughts on the question.

My opinion is that they should not. It is unnecessarily expensive and a violation of their privacy. Most departments already conduct fitness-for-duty evaluations when a problem arises. If you do a psychological evaluation when nothing is going on, it is likely to reveal nothing.

I’m not saying that, if we did routine post-employment evaluations, there wouldn’t be some percent of officers with problems whom we would identify. But psychological screening is not a science, and false positives are also likely.

The idea of post-employment psychological testing was raised by the Christopher Commission (which investigated the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles). The Christopher Commission said people with violent tendencies are not being screened out, and that the job changes people.

But the violent behavior we are seeing does not necessarily stem from personality traits. My belief is that violent behavior stems from socialization and fear. Fear can be addressed by skills-enhancement training for officers on the job. Right now, we train officers, and then we tend to leave it to them to maintain the skills. Skills--whether verbal or defensive--atrophy if not used. Without the confident availability of alternatives, confrontations are more likely to escalate to violence.

The socialization of officers, the macho image some develop on the street, can be addressed with more emphasis on the attitudes of field-training officers and first-line supervisors. Are the academy instructors and the field supervisors on the same page? Are we teaching 1990s policing in the classroom and 1970s policing in the field?

The last area to be looked at is a comprehensive program of psychological support. Field work does take its toll, and officers need the availability of confidential counseling as well as outreach such as workshops on such things as dealing with stepchildren, aging parents and substance abuse.

It would be very much like employee assistance programs in private industry, but more proactive.