justtry wrote on Aug 17^th, 2006 at 8:19am:

Thank you, Retcopper.

Your reply made me feel a lot better.  The only reason I am asking is not so I can fool anyone in hiring me when I am not qualified, but rather that I don't want to waste anyone's time by applying when I know I would be rejected in the first place.  I have been loosing sleep in the last week since I thought I have lost my dream of becoming a police officer for good... not even because of what I did or did not do.  That would have scarred me for life.   

Even though I do not have any fear or reservation for taking the polygraph, I do understand why some people despite it.  After all, if it is not 100 percent accurate, people's dreams will be destroyed because of it.  Even if one innocent person gets rejected is too high of a price to pay.  It may not affect the  hiring police dept at all, but a false-positive result will casts  shadow on the failed applicants life for a long time.  It's a tough balancing act.  I will stop blabbing now.

Lastly, if anyone else has any further insight, please let me know.  I want to be rather certain before I do embark on my application to the police dept.  Thank you!

justtry


You can't pick your relatives.   Their past history will have no bearing on your hiring prospects.  Forget the overseas check.  Most do not and if they did it would not or should I say should not affect you.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply.  

Does anyone know whether or not they check for overseas criminal records on family members if they weren't born in the US?  

Also, would you be automatically disqualified if you your family members had any convictions or wants on any type of charges?   

Any insight would help.  Thanks.

Not much one can do about the misdeeds of their family, justtry.  The fact that you have good references is a plus.  Now, as to your polygraph:

Please remember that truthful people get judged as liars by the ploy, er, poly.  You might well pass doing nothing but telling the truth, relaxing, and playing "Sailing" by Christopher Cross in your head   Or, you might run into a particularly noxious couple of relevant questions, be honest on the controls, and end up with spiked readings on the RQ's versus flat readouts on the controls.  That is messageboard-speak for you fail, go find another job.

(The way to insure passing is to make your control questions, or CQ's, visibly more indicative of a reaction than the relevant (important) ones, or RQ's).

You would want:

(control) Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?  to cause an increase in physiological responses, while

(relevant) Have you ever committed trainbombing? to show no reaction, or at least less of a reaction.

I use trainbombing because it would be introduced to provoke a visceral reaction by its innate repugnance, your own surprise, or the fact that you have to assimilate a word you don't hear often.  If you get a question sounding something like that, I suggest you might have a particularly poor (or malevolent) polyboy, of which there are plenty.  They're not supposed to go into sex, politics, religion, trade unions, or racial opinions; nor are they to use words that by themselves tend to evoke a large reaction.  However, these "rules", which are really guidelines, are sometimes set aside for whatever reason.

If you get something like this, stay cool and go with the flow.  More likely, you'll get

(treat as relevant) Have you ever committed a felony?  That's general enough and not anxiety-provoking.

Good luck to you...

Hi everyone,

Just curious about background on my family members.  How in-depth is it?  I have no doubt I will pass my polygraph by telling the truth, but I am afraid some of my family members past involvement with the law will dq me from becoming an officer.  Just for your information, I have a spotless record with many police officers as references.  Thank you.

Best of luck,