The U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General's
Semiannual Report to Congress for 1 April - 30 September 2004 addresses, among other things, the use of polygraphs within the Department, revealing a roughly 50% growth in the FBI's use of polygraphs since FY 2001-FY 2002:
Quote:Department's Use of Polygraph Examinations
The OIG surveyed Department components to identify those that use polygraph examinations. The survey was designed to identify all components that use or administer polygraph examinations and determine how polygraph examinations are used throughout the Department. This information was obtained through responses to a questionnaire that was sent to 43 Department components asking them whether they administered polygraph examinations or used examinations administered by other components, the purposes for polygraph examinations, whether they had written policies and procedures for governing the use of polygraphs, and to provide an estimate of the cost of each polygraph.
Of the 43 components responding to the questionnaire, 12 reported that they used polygraph examinations. Five of the 12 said they conducted examinations not only for their own use, but for the use of the other 7 components as well. The survey also revealed that Department components conducted a total of 27,426 polygraph examinations from FYs 2001 through 2003. During that period, the FBI conducted the most polygraph examinations - 79 percent (21,616 of 27,426) of all the examinations conducted in the Department. FBI officials stated that they expect the number of polygraph examinations to grow by about 25 percent annually, from 8,079 in FY 2003 to about 10,000 in FY 2004.
Department components reported that they used polygraph examinations as an aid in criminal investigations, employment screening, administrative investigations, witness security, foreign special investigative and vetted units overseas, counterintelligence, personnel security, sex offender assessments, and personnel integrity (internal). The survey revealed several issues that we believe warrant additional review. As a result, we are initiating an extensive evaluation.
While the growth in the FBI's use of polygraphs in FY 2004 is about 25%, the growth since FY 2001- FY 2002 is closer to 50%.
The rapid growth in the number of polygraph "tests" administered by the FBI reflects a willfull disregard for the overwhelmingly negative findings of the National Academy of Sciences in its 2002 report,
The Polygraph and Lie Detection as well a head-in-the-sand posture vis-a-vis the widespread availability of
simple, effective countermeasures that polygraphers
cannot reliably detect.
Pages: 1
FBI Use of Polygraphs Up 50% Since FY 2001-FY 2002 (Read 2211 times)
