Tomorrow morning I am scheduled to take my poly for a large PD.

I have nothing to hide and have been completely honest on my background. I have worked extremely hard to get to this point and when I reviewed this site my heart just sank.

I downloaded the ebook and basically I just want to make sure I have it right:

All I need to do is recognize a control system and then pucker up or imagine falling and lie?

I had to use CM's I have led a clean life and have never done anything that would preclude my being a LEO. I hate this stupid test just for the reason it is so inaccurate. All I can think about is failing this damn thing. I have a friend who went thru the same thing and he failed. He is a freaking choir boy, no drugs, no theft of any kind. He is a model of what we want our officers to be and he failed the poly! He retested and passed but this is driving me nuts! If I knew I could pass using CM's I would have lived it up at least a little, but I wanted to get into this since I was a kid, went through the Marines, college and everything else just to get here.

The fact that I may have a false positive is making me want to take drugs!

or reality is that you educated yourself and were not a victim of a false +.

Anal, you can try all you want to throw smoke screen but more and more people are learning the reality and the truth I am laughing at your last several post......

AnalSphincter,

It is really kind of hard to take you seriously with a name like that, but I digress and will address your point.

As a supervisor of supervisors in a LE agency I am all for the use of the polygraph on hiring new applicants.  It has always amazed me how someone will stare me straight in the eye during the Oral Board and lie to me about a question only to fall to pieces and admit all kinds of things a week later during the pre-polygraph interview.  It is actually quite funny and I feel much more confident about the recruits and their integrity with the use of the polygraph.

I also think the polygraph is a great tool at investigating crimes and it also saves us a lot of time and resources because people confess due to the machine.

The simple fact is that the machine is just as accurate as flipping a coin.  It cannot be the sole determining factor (absent a confession) in adjudicating a person or ascertaining their suitability for employment.

If it was such a great machine, then why does every agency that uses it still drug test all applicants?  You would figure that if they passed the polygraph then they obviously haven't used drugs.  I appreciate that in another post you actually admit that it is not perfect.  That is a great first step in coming to terms that it is not the panacea to all our problems.

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that the polygraph also keeps people that were honest out of their desired career.  One that pays very poorly, puts you at risk on a daily basis, opens you up to all sorts of unfounded tort claims, and also shortens your natural life span.  Yet people have a calling in them that makes them want to put up with this.  But some man and his machine decide that he is unfit or lying and that can often piss people off.  Having your integrity questioned when you are actually a man of integrity is very irritating.

I apologize for the apparent ambiguity of my post.  It was very late at night/early in the morning when I wrote it and having re-read it I realized that I made a statement that was not clear and seemed to contradict itself.   

Let me elaborate further on the polygraph and why It is that I have reservations about it.  It basically boils down to a few things.  First, the machine while probably more reliable than a the flip of a coin ( I was merely using a phrase to describe its wishy-washy accuracy and not implying that it was a 50/50 chane and also you could flip a coin 100 times and have it come out 70/30, so the statement allowed me some leeway).  Anyway, those of us that are educated about the machine know that even if a candidate passes, a field-background investigation must be done and we even require them to take a urinalysis.  However, there are masses of idiots out there (mostly at the administrative level of law enforcement) that know nothing about the polygraph, have never even taken a polygraph and this is where the problem begins.  They cut back on the time the investigator can gather information for the background, they now start requiring that the investigator mail out a stupid questionairre instead of going out and doing face to face or even phone interviews and ultimately they begin to disqualify candidates on the recommendation of the polygrapher (granted I have no problem with this if deception is discovered and admitted to by the candidate) who tell them he found the applicant to be deceptive.  This is of course his opinion that is only backed up by a spike on the screen.  Many years ago I was denied employment with an agency that didn't polygraph based on an inconclusive result with an agency that did.  I had to keep correcting the members on the oral board that an inconclusive result does not mean failure.  They got irritated when I could not tell them what part of the test (subject matter) I failed and felt I was deceiving them.  This is of course not entirely the fault of the polygraph, but ignorance based on part from the administrative element found in most agencies.  However, the polygrapher for our agency does his part in keeping the administrative element blind as to the reality of the polygraph as well, so technically it is slightly the polygraph communities fault as well.

My point is that the polygraph should only be used as an adjunct to a background investigation and never as the background investigation or the sole disqualifier.


As far as your statement regarding the use of the polygraph in South American countries.  The level of corruption there needs something to ensure that at least at the street level the LE community is kept clean.  This is only a bandaid on a laceration, because unfortunately, the politicians are not polygraphed and they are ultimately the most corrupt of them all.  Heck, even when the threat of being polygraphed was made on some members of the United States congress they all quickly banded together to denounce the machine as inaccurated and unreliable.  (between us I think it is just because these guys had so much to hide).  How can you blame the street level cop for being corrupt when the Mayor, Governor and President are all stealing millions and accepting millions in bribes. 

Either way, I hope I cleared it up, but I must admit that often I will write something and realize that "I" know what I am talking about, but no one else does.  Especially when I write something at the wee hours of the morning.

On another note, welcome aboard and I hope you stick around.  I feel that an educated and well written pro-polygraph contributor was definitely needed and lacking on this forum.

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Yes, you and I know this, but it needs to be mentioned because there are so many people out there that don't.

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Yes, I would never recommend that we stop screening, but you cannot be 100% for something that is not 100% accurate.  Therefore the second part of my post although somewhat ambiguous was attempting to point this out.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to your question before your polygraph session. I'm on vacation, and have limited Internet access.

To address your question, the key to passing is to produce larger responses to the "control" questions than to the relevant questions. Such methods as the anal pucker, or thinking frightening thoughts when the "control" questions are asked, are effective as polygraph countermeasures. However, although the polygrapher expects a less-than-truthful answer in response to a probable-lie "control" question, it does not really matter whether one's reaction to the "control" questions is truthful or not.

puckerup wrote on Feb 8^th, 2005 at 7:26pm:

anythingformoney wrote on Feb 10^th, 2005 at 5:47pm:


An "inconclusive" is enough to not get a job or jeapordize getting a clearance.  I'd call that failing.

I didn't even know about this forum until I had to search on "polygraph inconclusive" in google.  I was accused of using countermeasures.  Had to look that one up too even though the word sounds pretty obvious.

"You're breathing too fast!  ... You're breathing too slow!  ... Don't think about your breathing!"  Uh... see the lack of logic in that?

If a polygraph can get a bad guy to confess, that is fine.  But if a polygraph diverts attention to an innocent person who simply "failed" or got an "inconclusive" then that is bad.  Does the cost justify the benefit?

dimas wrote on Feb 11^th, 2005 at 4:43am:



Very well put, Thanks for speaking my mind