Television stations WHAS and WDRB report that the Simpsonville, Kentucky Police Department‘s six members face polygraph interrogations after some $30,000 in cash along with drugs and firearms were stolen from the small department’s evidence locker in an overnight break-in. The Kentucky State Police are conducting the investigation. All members of the Simpsonville P.D. have agreed to be polygraphed.
Such polygraph dragnets have a poor record of success. AntiPolygraph.org has found no recent examples where such dragnents have solved a mystery. Examples of past polygraph dragnets with no reported success include:
- A 2001 inquest at the Irondale, Alabama city hall to determine who in city hall may have leaked confidential police information;
- The 2006 polygraph dragnet of Jacksonville, Florida firefighters over nooses placed on the gear of two black firefighters;
- A 2006 polygraph dragnet at the Greensboro, North Carolina city council in an attempt to determine who leaked a confidential report on racism in the Greensboro Police Department;
- The 2009 mass polygraph “testing” of members of the Dracut, Massachusetts Police Department regarding the disappearance of marijuana stored as evidence;
- A 2009 polygraph dragnet at a Houston, Texas fire station regarding alleged racial and sexual harrassment.
Polygraph “testing” is thoroughly discredited pseudoscience. Polygraph “tests” are easily defeated using simple countermeasures (see chapter 4) that polygraph operators cannot detect, and truthful persons are frequently falsely accused of deception by polygraph operators. Polygraph chart readings are evidence of nothing and should never be relied on to implicate or exculpate individuals in criminal investigations.