Police Psychology Notes — Chapter 2

Police Selection

  • Police selection: Process

    • Policing is a complex, demanding, and stressful occupation
    • Requires intelligence, patience, creativity, and ethicality
    • Police agencies need process to select police officers
    • Screen out those with undesirable qualities; select in those with desirable qualities
    • Consider physical fitness, cognitive abilities, personality, etc.

  • Brief History of Police Selection

    • Selection procedures used since the early 1900s
    • 1917: Intelligence tests
    • 1950s: Personality tests
    • 1950s-60s: Psychological/psychiatric screening becomes standard
    • Selection procedures used today:
    • Background checks
    • Medical exams
    • Personality assessments
    • Cognitive ability tests
    • Selection interview
    • Agency-specific requirements (e.g., polygraph)

  • Developing Police Selection Instruments

    • Two stages in developing police selection instruments:
    • Job analysis
    • Construction and validation

  • Job Analysis: Process

    • The goal is to define what “K S A s” make a good police officer – Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities
    • Often done with assistance of an organizational psychologist
    • Can conduct a job analysis using:
    • Survey methods
    • Observational techniques
    • Interviews with staff

  • Job Analysis: Problems

    • Conducting a job analysis is a complex task:
    • Importance of K S A s not stable over time
    • Different K S A s for different jobs
    • Disagreement over important K S A s
    • Core K S A s that are commonly agreed upon include:
    • Honesty
    • Reliability
    • Sensitivity to others
    • Communication skills
    • Problem-solving skills

  • Construction and Validation: Process

    • The goal of the second stage is to:
    • Develop an instrument to measure K S A s (construction)
    • Ensure it relates to measures of performance (validation)
    • Most important measure in this context is predictive validity – Do instrument scores predict on-job performance?
    • Calculate validity coefficients:
    • +1.00+1.00: Strong positive relationship
    • 0.000.00: No relationship
    • −1.00-1.00: Strong negative relationship

  • Construction and Validation: Problems

    • Many options for measuring performance:
    • Punctuality
    • Complaints
    • Commendations
    • Academy performance
    • Different performance measures provide different results – e.g., Peer vs. supervisor ratings – often contradict
    • No clear answer on best measures to use

  • Validity of Police Selection Instruments

    • Selection Interviews
    • Psychological Tests: Cognitive Ability
    • Psychological Tests: Personality
    • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
    • Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI)
    • Assessment Centres

  • Selection Interviews

    • One of the most common procedures used in selection process
    • Most common are semi-structured interview – Preset list of questions asked to all interviewees – Goal is to determine if the applicant possesses relevant K S A s
    • Research examining predictive validity is mixed – Highly structured interviews lead to better prediction – More research on the validity of selection interviews is needed

  • Psychological Tests: Cognitive Ability

    • Cognitive ability tests are used to assess – Verbal – Mathematical – Memory – Reasoning abilities
    • Some support for predictive validity of cognitive tests – Higher relationship for training than for job performance

  • Psychological Tests: Personality

    • Two of the most used personality tests for police selection – Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) – Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI)

  • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

    • Most common personality test used for selection – MMPI-2: 567 True/False questions
    • Originally developed to identify psychopathological problems – Depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, etc.
    • Has significant but low predictive validity scores – Effective at predicting future problematic behaviours – May be useful for screening out unsuitable police candidates

  • Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI)

    • The IPI was developed specifically for police selection – 310 True/False questions
    • Measures personality traits and behaviour patterns relevant to policing – Stress reactions, interpersonal interactions, alcohol use, etc.
    • IPI is slightly more predictive than the MMPI

  • Assessment Centres

    • A facility where the behavior of applicants is observed by experts
    • Primary selection instrument used is the situational test – Real-world simulations of policing tasks
    • Significant, but low to moderate validity scores

  • Police Discretion

    • Police Discretion: Definition
    • Importance of Police Discretion
    • Problems with Police Discretion
    • Areas Where Police Discretion is Used
    • Individuals with Mental Illnesses
    • Use of Force Situations
    • Controlling police discretion
    • RCMP’s Use-of-Force Model

  • Police Discretion: Definition

    • Freedom an officer has in deciding when and how to enforce the law
    • Discretion is required in a wide range of police tasks – e.g., ticketing, use of force, arrest decisions
    • Difficult to have specific laws/guidelines for every situation

  • Importance of Police Discretion

    • Discretion is required because:
    • Some laws are vague and were not intended to be fully enforced
    • Many laws violations are minor in nature (e.g., slight speeding)
    • Full enforcement would alienate the public
    • Full enforcement would overwhelm the criminal justice system
    • Full enforcement would deplete limited police resources

  • Problems with Police Discretion

    • Society must deal with consequences of allowing discretion
    • Racial profiling is an example of inappropriate use of police discretion

  • Areas Where Police Discretion is Used

    • Youth crime (discussed in Ch. 12)
    • Domestic violence (discussed in Ch. 13)
    • Individuals with mental illness
    • Use of force situations

  • Individuals with Mental Illnesses

    • Encounters with mentally ill individuals are common – Increasing due to deinstitutionalization
    • Police responses typically include:
    • Informal resolution
    • Escort to psychiatric facility
    • Arrest
    • Lack of mental health support often leads to criminalization

  • Use of Force Situations

    • Requires reasonable grounds and only as much as is necessary – Section 25 of the Criminal Code – Wording of legislation vague
    • Use of force situations are very rare – 0.1%0.1\% of police-public interactions
    • Subjects typically male and often intoxicated

  • Controlling Police Discretion

    • Departmental policies
    • Use-of-Force Models provide guidance with respect to:
    • Decision making in potential use-of-force situations
    • Articulating decisions after an incident is over
    • RCMP’s Use-of-Force Model instructs officers to consider:
    • Environmental conditions (lighting, location, etc.)
    • Subject’s behaviour (abilities, state of mind, etc.)
    • Tactical issues (threat cues, number of subjects present, etc.)

  • RCMP’s Use-of-Force Model

    • Figure 2.4 The RCMP’s Incident Management/Intervention Model

  • Sources and Consequences of Police Stress

    • Sources of Stress
    • Consequences of Stress

  • Sources of Stress

    • Policing involves high levels of stress for officers and their families
    • Four primary types of policing-related stress:
    • Organizational (e.g., excessive paperwork)
    • Occupational (e.g., human suffering)
    • Criminal Justice (e.g., unfavorable court decisions)
    • Public (e.g., distorted press reports)
    • Organizational issues often highest sources

  • Consequences of Stress

    • Physical Health Problems – Digestive disorders, cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc.
    • Psychological/Personal Problems – Depression, alcohol abuse, burnout, etc. – Not all studies support higher rates within policing populations
    • Job Performance Problems – Decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, early retirement, etc.

  • Strategies for Dealing with Police Stress

    • Police Stress: Programs
    • Resiliency Training
    • Psychological Debriefings

  • Police Stress: Programs

    • A variety of stress prevention and management strategies exist – Informal support networks – Physical fitness programs – Professional counseling – Family assistance programs – Critical incident stress debriefings

  • Resiliency Training

    • Improving officers’ ability to effectively adapt to stress and adversity
    • One key is facilitating mental preparedness through:
    • Education about aspects of extreme stress
    • Opportunities to practice resilience techniques
    • Evidence of effectiveness of resiliency training is limited but favorable

  • Psychological Debriefings

    • Brief psychologically-oriented intervention after distressing event – Includes social support and venting of emotions – Education about stress responses and coping mechanisms
    • Mixed findings on efficacy in reducing stress
    • May be due to differences between studies:
    • Number of sessions
    • Type of trauma experienced
    • Type of facilitator