Expanding Federal Polygraph Programs

The Personnel Security Managers’ Research Program - June 2001

Overview

Several organizations have announced their intentions to increase the number of screening polygraphs in their personnel security programs. While each is developing its plans from its own perspective, any increase beyond a few hundred exams per year has implications for the system as a whole, because all organizations must draw their additional examiners from the same pool of qualified applicants and of annuitants willing to return to work. Training is also an issue: new examiners must be trained by the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI), and DoDPI has staffing and facilities constraints that determine the maximum number of students it can handle per year. This study lays out the system-wide implications of individual agency plans to increase the number of polygraph examinations. It makes four assumptions:

• At least for the next year or so, the pool of trained examiners is fixed and relatively small; it consists of about 500 current examiners and a handful of retirees willing to return;
• DoDPI can train annually about 33 more new examiners than it currently does before it would exceed its capacity; current rates of training are sufficient for replacing attrition and for minor manpower adjustments but do not increase the number of active examiners;
• The productivity of examiners and the ratio of quality control to line examiners will remain constant; and
• All agencies will compete more or less equally for training slots and for the services of annuitants.

Table 1 (see Appendix A) provides basic data about US Government polygraph programs. This includes personnel security screening and criminal specific examinations. Table 2 provides the system requirements for increasing the number of examinations from this year’s base level of about 56,000 to 60,500 in increments of 250. Separate columns indicate the change in the number of examiners and quality control examiners as well as training requirements needed to achieve various increases in polygraph examinations.

The figures used in Tables 1 and 2 and other parts of this study reflect polygraph programs across the US Government. Actual conditions in an individual agency may differ significantly. Adjusting the Excel formulae in Table 3 to reflect an agency’s actual figures will yield an equivalent of Table 2 for that agency.

Short Term Factors Affecting Increases in Examinations

Currently, DoDPI has the capacity to train 108 examiners per year in three classes of 36 students each. On average, during the last five years, 75 slots have been required to cover annual examiner attrition. This leaves 33 slots each year for adding new examiners to the system. At this rate, 11 additional examiners can be added three times per year.

This rate of increase reflects all types of polygraph examinations, criminal as well as personnel screening. Personnel screening exams are conducted at a more rapid rate, generally two per day. At that rate, if all 11 new examiners were assigned to personnel screening programs, the maximum rate of increase in the number of exams would be about 1,320. The actual rate would be lower, reflecting the time examiners are off line for annual leave, sick leave and other reasons.

DoDPI conducts three classes per year. Each class lasts 13 weeks. In theory, the minimum time required to train an examiner is thus 13 weeks. As a practical matter, however, most new examiners are assigned from other duties in their agencies. Those new examiners must be identified, shifted from their current assignment, and then they must wait for a slot in one of the three training classes. The actual time between determination of the need for a new examiner to completion of training ranges from about six to nine months.

Given the lead times required for identifying and training new examiners combined with the need to train 75 per year to keep up with attrition, the best increase in capacity the system is likely to achieve from new examiners is about 363 polygraphs in the first year. In subsequent years, the increase in the number of examinations by new examiners should be about 2,200. As noted above, the actual rate of increase depends on the portion of new examiners assigned to screening programs as well as other administrative factors.

Training capacity could be increased by augmenting DoDPI’s staff with qualified current examiners. Approximately 100 of them meet the degree requirements for teaching at DoDPI; how many of those are competent instructors is unknown. However, if that were done, during the first year, availability of examiners to conduct polygraph examinations would decline by a ratio of 1 examiner for every 6 additional trainees. Annuitants could be used as trainers, but that draws from the pool of potential line examiners. Training capacity could be increased by using line examiners, on a part-time basis, as trainers. NSA and DoDPI used this method during a recent training program.

Agencies that rotate their examiners to other positions after two or three years could reduce their attrition rates by increasing tour lengths. Some agencies have already taken measures, such as monetary and professional incentives, to encourage examiners to remain longer on line. Lengthened service would increase current system capacity both by retaining examiners and by freeing up some of the training slots now used to replace examiners who have rotated to other jobs. Lengthened service would also increase the proportion of experienced examiners on the line.

The most direct ways to increase system capacity are to:

• Hire annuitants with appropriate clearances. These examiners can be brought on line relatively quickly. We do not know the precise size of the pool of examiners available and willing to consider returning, but we do know that it is very small, almost certainly fewer than 10 people. We also know that several agencies are already drawing on this pool. Annuitants who have been retired for more than two years and who do not have current clearances would need to be reinvestigated and they would also likely need some retraining. At that point, training a new examiner is faster and more cost effective than rehiring an annuitant. This has the effect of limiting the size of the potential pool of available annuitants.
• Draw examiners from other agency programs, such as criminal investigations. Of course, this approach reduces the number of examiners available for those programs and may not be sustainable over time.

While both of these methods of increasing system capacity may work in the short term, neither is likely to be sustainable over time for all agencies. For example, the first agencies drawing from the pool of annuitants may meet their needs, succeeding agencies may not.

Quality Implications

New examiners brought on line to increase system capacity will have some qualitative impact on polygraph programs. Currently, each year, about 10,000 polygraph examinations are conducted by examiners who with one year’s experience. If the maximum number of new examiners were brought on line, that figure would increase by about forty percent.

An increase in the number of examiners in the system would also require an increase in quality control examiners. Generally, those examiners would be drawn from the ranks of experienced examiners and would marginally reduce the number of experienced examiners on the line.

Facilities and Equipment

Increases in the number of polygraph examinations would require more space and equipment to support the program. Each additional examiner requires two spaces—one room to conduct examinations and another space to serve as an office. Each additional quality control examiner requires a space with appropriate monitoring equipment. In the short term, examiners can make do with temporary facilities, but over time, larger programs mean more space. Every additional 1,000 polygraph examinations will require about 8 additional examination rooms plus eight spaces for examiners’ desks.

More examiners also require more polygraph equipment as well as computers and other support equipment. At a minimum, 1,000 additional polygraphs will require additional instruments for 8 examiners plus appropriate equipment for the additional quality control examiner plus some spare equipment to accommodate equipment failure or repair.

Appendix A: Tables

Table 1: U.S. Government Polygraph Data Averages per Year

Table 2: System Requirements for Increasing

Polygraph Examinations

Table 3: Formulae

Exams	Cumulative Increase Exams	Examiners	Cumulative Increase Examiners	Cumulative Increase Examiners + QC	Training Requirement	Avg. Exams / Examiner	QC	Examiners +QC
56000	0	422	0	0	75	133	=SUM(C4/5)	=SUM(C4+H4)
56250	=SUM(A5-A4)	=SUM(A5/G5)	=SUM(C5-C4)	0	=SUM(C5-C4+75+(H5-H4))	133	=SUM(C5/5)	=SUM(C5+H5)
56500	=SUM(A6-A4)	=SUM(A6/G6)	=SUM(C6-C4)	0	=SUM(C6-C4+75+(H6-H4))	133	=SUM(C6/5)	=SUM(C6+H6)
56750	=SUM(A7-A4)	=SUM(A7/G7)	=SUM(C7-C4)	=SUM(I7-I4)	=SUM(C7-C4+75+(H7-H4))	133	=SUM(C7/5)	=SUM(C7+H7)
57000	=SUM(A8-A4)	=SUM(A8/G8)	=SUM(C8-C4)	=SUM(I8-I4)	=SUM(C8-C4+75+(H8-H4))	133	=SUM(C8/5)	=SUM(C8+H8)
57250	=SUM(A9-A4)	=SUM(A9/G9)	=SUM(C9-C4)	=SUM(I9-I4)	=SUM(C9-C4+75+(H9-H4))	133	=SUM(C9/5)	=SUM(C9+H9)
57500	=SUM(A10-A4)	=SUM(A10/G10)	=SUM(C10-C4)	=SUM(I10-I4)	=SUM(C10-C4+75+(H10-H4))	133	=SUM(C10/5)	=SUM(C10+H10)
57750	=SUM(A11-A4)	=SUM(A11/G11)	=SUM(C11-C4)	=SUM(I11-I4)	=SUM(C11-C4+75+(H11-H4))	133	=SUM(C11/5)	=SUM(C11+H11)
58000	=SUM(A12-A4)	=SUM(A12/G12)	=SUM(C12-C4)	=SUM(I12-I4)	=SUM(C12-C4+75+(H12-H4))	133	=SUM(C12/5)	=SUM(C12+H12)
58250	=SUM(A13-A4)	=SUM(A13/G13)	=SUM(C13-C4)	=SUM(I13-I4)	=SUM(C13-C4+75+(H13-H4))	133	=SUM(C13/5)	=SUM(C13+H13)
58500	=SUM(A14-A4)	=SUM(A14/G14)	=SUM(C14-C4)	=SUM(I14-I4)	=SUM(C14-C4+75+(H14-H4))	133	=SUM(C14/5)	=SUM(C14+H14)
58750	=SUM(A15-A4)	=SUM(A15/G15)	=SUM(C15-C4)	=SUM(I15-I4)	=SUM(C15-C4+75+(H15-H4))	133	=SUM(C15/5)	=SUM(C15+H15)
59000	=SUM(A16-A4)	=SUM(A16/G16)	=SUM(C16-C4)	=SUM(I16-I4)	=SUM(C16-C4+75+(H16-H4))	133	=SUM(C16/5)	=SUM(C16+H16)
59250	=SUM(A17-A4)	=SUM(A17/G17)	=SUM(C17-C4)	=SUM(I17-I4)	=SUM(C17-C4+75+(H17-H4))	133	=SUM(C17/5)	=SUM(C17+H17)
59500	=SUM(A18-A4)	=SUM(A18/G18)	=SUM(C18-C4)	=SUM(I18-I4)	=SUM(C18-C4+75+(H18-H4))	133	=SUM(C18/5)	=SUM(C18+H18)
59750	=SUM(A19-A4)	=SUM(A19/G19)	=SUM(C19-C4)	=SUM(I19-I4)	=SUM(C19-C4+75+(H19-H4))	133	=SUM(C19/5)	=SUM(C19+H19)
60000	=SUM(A20-A4)	=SUM(A20/G20)	=SUM(C20-C4)	=SUM(I20-I4)	=SUM(C20-C4+75+(H20-H4))	133	=SUM(C20/5)	=SUM(C20+H20)
60250	=SUM(A21-A4)	=SUM(A21/G21)	=SUM(C21-C4)	=SUM(I21-I4)	=SUM(C21-C4+75+(H21-H4))	133	=SUM(C21/5)	=SUM(C21+H21)
60500	=SUM(A22-A4)	=SUM(A22/G22)	=SUM(C22-C4)	=SUM(I22-I4)	=SUM(C22-C4+75+(H22-H4))	133	=SUM(C22/5)	=SUM(C22+H22)