The relationship between pre-employment psychological screening and officer misconduct

The study examined the correlation between the psychological screening of applicants for positions as a certified law enforcement officer with randomly selected South Carolina local law enforcement agencies or departments, and the number of incidents involving on-duty officer misconduct in the selected agencies/departments between 1990 and 2009. The correlational study examined the predictability of psychological screening. Accordingly, a lower incidence of on-duty misconduct when psychological screening is utilized demonstrates the effectiveness of the screening; whereas, a higher rate of on-duty misconduct when psychological screening is present represents lower predictability from the screening. Therefore, an absence of a correlation between psychological screening and the rate of incidents involving on-duty misconduct would support the postulation that socialization, or social learning, plays a significant role in officer on-duty behavior. Seventeen local law enforcement agencies reported as a part of the sample whether a psychological evaluative screening was used for employment, which was compared to the number of on-duty incidents of misconduct reported. There were 577 incidents or cases of misconduct reported. Based on the responses from the 17 local law enforcement agencies in the sample, there was a higher percentage of reported on-duty incidents of misconduct when no psychological evaluative screening was used for employment.