Quote:exo,
Other agencies, such as the FBI and LAPD, also have pre-employment polygraph failure rates of about 50%. Such high rates are apparently not untypical. See, for example, Phoenix P.D. polygrapher Jack L. Ogilvie's article,
"Pre-employment testing: Is everyone lying?" Just read that. And I'm in shock: he sounds like a polygrapher who genuinely has a conscience, and a bit of skeptical thinking ability. On the down side, I wonder how long it will be before he's drummed out of the corps...
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to occur to him that the 50/50 statistic might be due less to failings in the "pre-test interview" and more due to the random nature of the polygraph itself.
Anyway, I was struck by one thing he said:
Quote:When people, especially potential recruits, come to us for a PDD est, we stress to them that they must be truthful. They must not hold back any information. They are told that to do so will eliminate them from the hiring process since we don't want liars, cheats, murderers, rapists and thieves working for our department. Then, during the pre-test interview, we ask them a myriad of questions pertaining to their past and force them to remember things they had forgotten years ago. Now, they have a dilemma. Do they tell us the things they remember and sound like they have been holding back or not say anything and chance a
failed test? Some even think that if they tell us something they did not tell their background investigator, they will be automatically eliminated for not revealing the information to the background investigator.
So, is the above an actual expression of sentiment, or a ruse intended for public consumption to encourage further admissions? I must admit, I've seen enough anecdotes of invented confessions, words taken out of context and twisted, etc. that I'm more than a bit suspicious.
If the latter, then it's too bad: what he wrote described a real problem. What the hell are you supposed to do when the intense, specific questioning of the polygraph session dredges up stuff you hadn't thought of before (possibly related, possibly not), yet every adjudication guideline is unanimous in proclaiming omission of relevant facts is a sure-fire ticket to disqualification?
Skeptic