Ryan Goudelocke reports for The Advocate of Baton Rouge, Louisana. Excerpt:
They’re called “lie detectors” for a reason: For decades polygraph operators have claimed the ability to sniff out deception by asking searching questions and watching squiggly lines drawn on paper.
And it’s a staple of crime fiction: Usually there’s a harshly lit room where the machine operator glares at a trembling perp — optionally smoking a shaking cigarette — until he breaks down.
“It’s kind of like the closer they get to the lie detector, the better their memory gets,” Baton Rouge polygrapher Larry Carroll said.
In 1988, Congress prohibited private-sector employers from requiring polygraph tests as part of pre-employment screenings. Before then, Carroll said, 15 to 20 local firms offered polygraph tests. Now he’s alone under “lie detectors” in the Yellow Pages.
Lawmakers left many exceptions, including government agencies at every level. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act virtually ended pre-employment polygraphing outside law enforcement and security-sensitive positions, such as nuclear power plant guards.
Recent research has cast doubt on even those uses, and at least one lawsuit is challenging their use by the federal government. But if you’re looking for a job in local law enforcement, get ready to get hooked up to the lie machine.
“If we didn’t feel it was useful, we wouldn’t be doing it,” East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Lt. Darrell O’Neal said.
The Sheriff’s Office has two trained polygraphers; one administers tests, and another, among other job duties, reviews the results. Every job applicant is tested.
“If people put too much weight behind a polygraph, that might not be good,” O’Neal said. “But it’s a tool that’s only part of a criminal or background investigation.”
Both the State Police and Baton Rouge Police Department routinely administer polygraph tests to prospective employees, though State Police applicants can choose not to take the test.
In-house specialists at all three agencies give those tests and assist in criminal and internal investigations. You won’t see polygraph results in a courtroom in a criminal trial.
Federal courts have upheld the right of local jurisdictions to exclude polygraphs from proceedings. In a 1998 opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke for a U.S. Supreme Court majority when he wrote, “There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable.”
In October, a National Academy of Sciences panel released a review of literature on polygraph reliability in employment screening. Their conclusion: “(Polygraph) accuracy … is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee screening in federal agencies.”