EAST RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) - Applicants for the East Ridge Police Department had a high rate of failure on a written test, and an expert says the tests taken at many departments around the country are not often well-designed.
Ninety people applied to become East Ridge police officers during 2014 but only 15 managed to pass the department’s initial written test. The test is designed to measure skills such as reading comprehension, following directions and logic.
The department has three officer openings.
Most police departments across the country have similar initial tests. At the Chattanooga Police Department, for example, more than 60 percent of applicants passed the initial written exam, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported (https://bit.ly/1CDBgPY).
A number of factors could play into that poor result, said Maria Haberfeld, chairman of the department of law and political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. She said often the tests aren’t well-designed.
“We have close to 18,000 police departments in this country with many different forms of testing, and in my opinion all of them are inadequate,” she said. “I have not yet seen one that would measure the social, emotional and change intelligence of the prospective recruits.”
There is no single test that all police departments give recruits, said Maggi Duncan, executive director at the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police. The association recommends a test created by a company called Standard and Associates. Across Tennessee, 72 police agencies use that particular test, she said.
The East Ridge department uses a test from a private Virginia company. It’s the first of a half-dozen steps applicants must take to get a job at the East Ridge department.
Haberfeld said that another problem for police departments when vetting applicants can be the age and experience of the applicants.
“They are just too young,” she said. “I would require a minimum age of 25 and a bachelor’s degree before I would test anybody for police work.”
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Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press, https://www.timesfreepress.com
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