News organizations across America yesterday carried an Associated Press story about how the police chief of a small town in Tennessee was using polygraphs to “weed out racists” from the hiring process:
Police Chief’s Polygraph Targets Racist Applicants
By SHEILA BURKE Associated Press
COOPERTOWN, Tenn. March 8, 2013 (AP)A police chief hired to rebuild a tiny Tennessee department dismantled by scandal is using a lie-detector test to keep racists off his force.
Coopertown Police Chief Shane Sullivan took over the department in November, becoming the 11th chief in as many years. He was hired on the heels of a series of police scandals that for a few months left Coopertown with no police at all. Years before that, a mayor was voted out of office after the local prosecutor accused him of racism and running a notorious speed trap.
Law enforcement experts say Sullivan’s polygraph approach is unusual, though some departments use the devices for other purposes during the application process. Others try to root out bias in other ways. One polygraph expert warned that lie detectors can’t accurately predict racism for reasons that include people’s inability to recognize their own racism.
Sullivan said he doubts racists will even apply for the force if they know about the tests.
“I think the polygraph will definitely keep these people from applying,” the 39-year-old chief said.
And he believes the policy is working, because he says it’s already discouraged some applicants. “I’ve told a couple of ones about the polygraph who have not called me back.”
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The fact that an applicant didn’t call back after being told about the polygraph requirement doesn’t necessarily mean that the applicant was a racist afraid of being caught by the lie detector. In fact, that is very unlikely to be the case. As the article goes on to explain, the polygraph question is not whether one holds racist attitudes, but whether one has committed a hate or race-based crime. Presumably, very few law enforcement applicants, even those with strong racial biases, have committed such crimes. It’s quite possible that the applicants lost interest for other reasons, such as low pay and poor career prospects with the tiny, trouble-plagued department.