Fishing expedition

[guest]

   In my experience with a Polygraph examination which resulted from a citizens anonymous compaint (which I subsequently passed) the Polygraph operator went on a fishing expedition asking me if I had ever lied to a supervisor or lied on police reports etc.  This was totally unrelated to my complaint.  I passed both the original complaint portion of the test and the fishing expedition but was left with a total lack of respect for the process.  I have also lost a great amount of my respect for my police department (Kansas City, Missouri Police Department).  Our agency has been known to polygraph officers over a scratched fender on a squad car.  After experiencing this abusive use of the polygraph and the abusive nature of the command staff in allowing this type of use of the polygraph I greatly regret my choice of police departments.  

[George W. Maschke]

Dear guest,

You wrote:

Polygraph operator went on a fishing expedition asking me if I had ever lied to a supervisor or lied on police reports etc.

These questions not related to the matter under investigation were so-called "control" questions, and your answers to them were assumed to be lies, or at least not completely true. For more on this, please see chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. I suspect that when you learn how your polygrapher lied to you during the procedure, you'll be even more upset with the Kansas City Police Department.

I encourage you to let others in KCPD know about "the lie behind the lie detector." By exposing polygraphy for the fraud that it is to the people against whom it is being practiced, we can help hasten the day that the final nail is driven into the coffin of this pseudoscientific procedure.