Noted and corrected. Sorry JB.

Dear The Breeze,

My contention is that my polygraph accusations were only accusations.  No background check was performed and there were no further investigations of any type to back the allegations: yet, my integrity is now in question due to a polygraph that the NAS confirms in prescreening situations is above chance but well below perfect (note, this was not specific incident testing because their were no known facts gathered because there was no investigation).

If you see my earlier replies to Poly-Cop,  my complaint is that there is no investigation at all by the federal agencies that I mentioned if you fail the pre-screening test (or come back "not withing acceptable parameters).  This is before or after.

Do you agree that non-specific incident general screening polygraphs are even close to accurate without external information that is gathered through the background check?

My other question, were the quality of FBI hires before 1994 so poor and had such problems that we indeed had to polygraph all applicants?  What did we gain?  Security, the NAS states no and we are opening doors to spies who are trained to pass the test because we are placing too much emphasis on successful polygraph testing.

There is no reasonable way to find the information which "accused me".  I will spend months if not years doing a freedom of information act trying to get my files from the Federal Government. 

A far as legal rancor goes,  the polygraph is subject to significant questionable validity according to the NAS.  The door of legal rancor is just starting to open.  This is a nationally recognized agency of Congress and most judges would be hesitate to throw out such expert testimony

My time is limited because I am on my lunchbreak.  I would like to continue your discussion later.  You bring in many ideas to the discussion.

Forgive any typing errors or spelling errors, I am hitting the keys as fast as I can in my time alloted.

Thanks for reading my opinions and replying.

Breeze,
Assuming there is no dispute about what is learned from a polygraph interrogation then this is one area that the NAS concurs the polygraph is effective with naive subjects. The problem of false positives doesn't include confessional DQ's and the rate of false positives with the espionage screens the DOE uses is universally agreed to be far higher than the incidence of true positives, simply because, fortunately, the incidence of traitors is so low.

-Marty

beech trees,

Certainly, police officers who passed pre-employment polygraph examinations have gone on to be charged with and/or convicted of crimes, as evidenced by the examples you've cited. The LAPD may not be a suitable example though, since its pre-employment polygraph screening program began in February 2001, and it's likely the LAPD officers in the cases you cited were not polygraphed.

The NAS report indeed makes it clear that polygraph screening is without validity. But admissions obtained in the process may nonetheless be of some value. I think The Breeze has raised some interesting points, which I hope to address here this weekend.

George,

Have there been any longitudinal studies on large numbers of police depts that have/have not done polygraph screenings? Since the polygraph seems to be such a key part of the hiring process I would expect there would be many or even some studies showing the value of it but I don't recall ever running across any.

Also, the polygraph may constitute a form of bonding much like that created by hazing rituals. The bonding created by these is incredibly strong and is one of the things that perpetuates the rituals.  Cialdini has a very good exposition on the power of this and certainly the polygraph with it's interrogation component may constitute functionally a form of hazing.

-Marty

Marty,

You write in part:

Quote:


Although there clearly is bonding occurring as the result of polygraph screening, I believe you badly miss the population of where that bonding is occurring.  There is no more bonding amongst a group of employees as a result of having taken polygraph screening exams than there is amongst employees who have endured rectal digital exams in a yearly physical.  The bonding that has occurred has been amongst victims of polygraph examinations with many of these victims having been denied employment and not those who as present employees are merely sharing past memories of their hiring experience.  The good news is that those who actually share this bonding are the same who are thus motivated to create this site, contribute to it, and will ultimately be those who eliminate that which is anything but an experience to be treasured and remembered as shared trials of days gone by.

Drew,

I think if a rectal exam took 6 hours and involved more of a mental rape rather than just an unpleasant procedure that reflects in no way on character, it would have much in common with hazing, creating a bond amongst those who had been through it.

Of course the form of bonding created by being mentally raped and having one's character questioned by a process one later learns is essentially voo-doo is pretty strong too. That is a quite different thing and is perhaps the singular thing most likely to defeat polygraph screening. Were the polygraph not limited by law to a fairly small group it's likely it would have been abolished years ago as a result of these effects.

-Marty

Fair Chance
You seem busy so Ill keep it short.  I am not comfortable with what happened to you and am glad our agency does things differently.
We background first, verify all DI scores and re-investigate as necessary. In other words we value our applicants.
Another thing we do is to go over an applicants paperwork line by line and have them re-answer all the questions, prior to polygraph.  This not only centers any areas of concern that an applicant may want to explain, but I believe it makes the test very specific to an applicant who intends to lie about a portion of thier past. I think this has saved numerous applicants who changed a "no" to a yes with an explanation. Yes we video tape as well.
We go over results prior to the applicant leaving, there is no mystery or wonder.  I find the fact that you would have to file a FOI request alarming.
Obviously, local government is not federal and you have little worth as a mere applicant.  There is another in line with similiar qualifications.  Im not sure throwing out polygraph would fix hiring inequities, but more care should go into the approach with a qualified applicant.  At least a specific test for a failure...was this offered to you?
Im not sure what you meant by "legal rancor".  I was simply asking for a response free of animosity since its clear I am swimming upstream on this site. It almost happened.
Good luck in what you need to do.