Los Angeles City Council Committee Votes to Hire Contract Polygraph Services

In an article entitled “Panel seeks to speed LAPD hiring,” David Zahniser of the Torrance, Calif. Daily Breeze reports on the 24 September 2001 meeting of the Los Angeles City Council’s Public Safety Committee. Excerpt:

The committee … recommended hiring a private firm to handle the backlog of more than 500 job applicants waiting to take the LAPD’s polygraph exam, one of a barrage of tests given to applicants.

While written exams can be given to a roomful of applicants, lie-detector tests must be administered one at a time. As a result, the LAPD now faces a backlog of 500 to 600 officer candidates awaiting the exam — a factor that is causing some applicants to lose interest in the LAPD.

The Public Safety Committee voted Monday to recommend that a private company be paid up to $615,000 to address that backlog. And it called for four new positions within the LAPD to handle the complicated tests on a permanent basis.

The private company to which the Committee recommended that a contract be awarded seems to be US Investigation Services, Inc. For discussion of the Committee’s actions, and for the text of the meeting agenda, see the AntiPolygraph.org message board thread, “L.A. City Council Mtg. Monday, 24 Sep.”

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