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.

There should not be periodic evaluations without cause. But management should use fitness-for-duty evaluations by a psychologist or psychiatrist more often than they do.

They should be used whenever officers have been behaving, either on-duty or off-duty, in a way that might affect their performance.

One way to spot problem behavior is by better tracking of complaints. So, as soon as one or more sustained and punishable complaints, or half a dozen or more nonsustained ones show up, you should begin to suspect a problem.

Most agencies track the complaints. But what happens is that the complaints are treated as they are in the criminal justice system, as either having some foundation or not having a foundation. And, if they don’t, they call them non-sustained or unfounded, and it’s as if they never happened. Then, every seven years, or so, they trash all the records. So there is no pattern you can find.

I also believe there is a very important role for psychological evaluation before officers are given special assignments, such as narcotics, vice, SWAT, bomb squad, organized crime. In these cases it would mainly be an assessment of whether they are emotionally stable as they go into highly confrontational assignments. And it should include a review of internal affairs records and sustained complaints to see if there are negative patterns.

In San Jose, we find that about 1% are not recommended at the time they are screened for special assignments. In large urban agencies, it can be as high as 10%. Most of the 10% have drinking-related problems. Some are right in the middle of a divorce or severe marital problems, and this is just not the time for a special assignment.

What you do with officers found to have psychological problems is no different than what you do with officers found to have physical problems during annual medical exams. If an officer finds out his back or knee is bad, the agency puts the officer on light or desk duty, and they are referred for treatment. Some do end up on disability. The same is true for psychological problems.

The basic issue is that we want to have more faith that officers are emotionally stable. In truth, most officers are very stable when they are hired and remain very stable. Part of the reason that I don’t think it is wise to do periodic testing of all incumbent officers is that about 90% have no sustained complaints throughout their career, and they are not problems to management or the citizens.

But about 10% come in, frankly, marginally functioning. They are making it, but the stress of the job and their own personal psychological baggage combine to drag them down. They don’t function very well at all.

In most of these cases, they are not vicious and sadistic, they are frightened and they are acting preemptively. They are saying, if I don’t get the first blow in I’m going to get hurt. And some of them are doing street jobs because they view the world as a terrible, dog-eat-dog place. They believe that criminals get off, and it’s time we just gave them a little punishment.

These 10% are the officers who cause most of the problems. And an increased use of psychological evaluations, in appropriate circumstances, could reduce the harm they do to themselves and the community.