
Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop? - jordanpg
http://www.mintpressnews.com/can-someone-be-too-smart-to-be-a-cop/192106/
======
RIMR
"However, the courts sided with the lower police department. In its ruling,
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the city did not
discriminate against Jordan because the same standards were applied to
everyone who took the test. In other words, no one who was deemed “too smart”
for the job after taking the intelligence test was hired."

You can apply that logic to race too: "We tested ALL applicants for blackness,
not ONLY the black applicants".

You are still sorting people out for something they cannot control...

~~~
callahad
True, but there are specific attributes that constitute classes legally
protected against discrimination. Race is one of them. Intelligence is not.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class)

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like Jordan attempted to argue that
intelligence should be considered an additional protected class, like race or
religion, but the courts disagreed. Since intelligence isn't a protected
class, and since the discrimination was applied equally across all applicants,
Jordan didn't have any cause for compensation from the police department.

Your hypothetical situation, screening for blackness, would absolutely _not
fly_ since color is a protected class.

~~~
dllthomas
There is also (though on a skim it might well not be relevant here) the notion
that something else might be used as an _excuse_ while someone is _actually_
not being hired because they are part of a protected class. That is where "but
we do this consistently" _often_ enters in...

------
jdmitch
I definitely had a friend once who was told she had received too high a score
for the police job she had applied for. I thought I remember at the time some
mention of the rationale being that the police force didn't want people who
were too independent-thinking to simply follow orders. Maybe that was just my
friend's interpretation though!

~~~
TallGuyShort
I've heard that from others and got a similar impression after I did well on
the ASVAB (US military aptitude test) and was speaking with a recruiter. It's
possibly true, but it's also possible (and a less malicious explanation) that
they just know you won't be happy in the position yourself and may not perform
well as a result. In hindsight, the career path I was interested in in the
military would have made me very unhappy, and although I thought the program
they were steering me toward was quota driven, I suspect I actually would have
done better in that program and been more interested.

~~~
vonmoltke
I had a similar experience, wherein a National Guard recruiter actually talked
me out of joining the army for that reason.

I also flirted with the Navy nuke program as I was finishing up my EE degree,
but decided to abort the process mid-stream. At my first job after graduating
my cubemate was a former Navy electrican, stationed on a carrier. What he told
me about the nukes made me happy I chose to abort.

~~~
BariumBlue
as someone thinking about navy nukes, may i ask what was unpalatable about it?

~~~
kevinskii
I served in a non-nuke role on a nuclear submarine for 4 years in the late
90's. My two cents:

If you already have a college degree or are close to finishing, it's best to
stay away from the military completely unless you seriously plan on making a
career of it. As a civilian you'll have lots more opportunities for adventure
and for making a positive impact in the world. Also avoid the trap of letting
the military pay for your degreee in exchange for X years of service.

If you're thinking of joining the military prior to college as an enlisted
sailor, go for it. You'll meet lots of very interesting people that you
otherwise wouldn't, and you may develop some good habits that will help you
later. Your personal definition of what is "hard" will probably change
considerably.

But DO NOT join for more than 4 years. Any less and you'll be stuck scrubbing
bilges the entire time. Any more and you'll go crazy from the lack of freedom,
and your math/science knowledge will have seriously atrophied by the time you
get out and continue your studies.

This brings us to the nuke program. Unless things have changed since I was in,
nuclear power school requires a 6 year commitment. It's definitely not worth
it. The skills aren't really that transferable and, judging from the many
nuclear-trained sailors I knew, the work really can't be that difficult. Trust
me, if you can get through beginning algebra, you can get through nuclear
power school. Recruiters will try to flatter your ego and make you feel like a
genius when you get a qualifying ASVAB score. I was told I got a perfect score
on the ASVAB, and I'm more proud of the hippo I managed to color with a crayon
when I was 5 years old. Quick, as fast as you can: What's 4/2? 2*3? 5-1? Next
question: If a gear turns clockwise, what direction does the gear touching it
turn? Congratulations! You qualify for nuclear power school!

Finally, in the likely chance that you end up serving on a nuclear carrier,
you'll be working with some of the biggest dirtbags this side of humanity.
Imagine sleeping in a dorm full of people who only joined the navy because
they couldn't make it on the outside as drug dealers.

------
reverend_gonzo
_meaning that at least according to the test, it requires more intelligence to
sell insurance than to solve crimes.)_

Police do not solve crimes. Police enforce laws. Detectives solve crimes. I
would expect that detectives and police officers would be held to different
standards.

~~~
falcolas
The pool of detectives is typically pulled from line police, isn't it? By
restricting the IQ of those enforcing the laws, you're creating a poor
candidate pool for detectives.

~~~
louhike
In France, detectives and police officers have to go the university to study
the law and other subjects. I thought it was the same in most countries, isn't
it?

~~~
jtbigwoo
In the U.S., different organizations have different standards. There are 2-
and 4-year criminal justice university programs, but many police departments
only require a high school diploma. A criminal justice degree or other related
degree is usually a plus even if it's not required. As an example, the
Minnesota State Patrol requires the applicants either have a 2- or 4-year
degree in any subject or be a licensed peace officer (which could have
happened through a criminal justice degree or through a police academy).

Most large cities have their own police academy or there's a regional academy
that several cities use. Police academy is usually three or four months of
intensive training that new recruits go through (a little like boot camp for
the armed forces). After graduating from an academy, the officers are
sometimes rotated through probationary assignments and then given a more
permanent assignment.

Detectives and other specialists are generally promoted out of the ranks of
police officers.

------
telecuda
Fast-forward 8 or so years to today, where crimes involving mobile devices or
computers are the norm. Police departments are recruiting tech-savvy young
adults out of high school, then sending them to training on digital forensics
and the like. Everything goes well for a couple years until they hit the
agency's pay ceiling and move to the private sector. There are plenty of
opportunities for smart people in law enforcement today that don't equate to
boredom - compensation has more to do with it IMO.

------
javajosh
This implies we have a police force that is unable to sense or react to nuance
in a situation, and who implement a fast but error prone pattern matching
algorithm to identify criminality - which is entirely consistent with their
behavior.

I suppose this wouldn't be a problem if we had a justice system that,
presumably powered by better brains, could quickly throw out the inevitable
false positives this quick and dirty algo produces. But the justice system is
so slow, so broken, and prone to pro-police bias that it exists primarily to
get as much punishment as possible out of those the unintelligent police have
tagged as "criminals". That is, the police are the de facto judge, jury, and
executioner, and they wield that power with all the delight that you might
imagine someone of low intelligence would experience at being given such
power.

(Of course, there is _still_ a way to avoid a false positive if you have a
great deal of money, which is probably why there is no great pressure to
reform the system. Otherwise you're spending 3 years on Riker's without a
trial.)

~~~
enraged_camel
The justice system is "broken" only if you believe that it's ultimate goal is
justice.

The truth however is that it's simply double-speak. 1984 illustrated this
beautifully. The Ministry of Truth was in charge of fabricating lies. The
Ministry of Love was in charge of punishing and torturing dissidents. The
Ministry of Peace was in charge of conducting perpetual war.

In our case, the justice system is in charge of _injustice_ , for example by
making sure that rich people remain in power and that their wealth and
property are protected (from the poor) and ruthlessly prosecuting anyone who
threatens the social order -- especially minorities.

~~~
javajosh
I think that's a dangerous way to think about things - not dangerous because
it will get you branded a Winston Smith and arrested, but because it sets up
an unnecessary and unhealthy duality between us and them. Injustice in the
criminal system is, more often than not, driven by smug complacency and
convenient, lazy bias rather than any real desire for injustice. That is, the
"majority evil" position is to simply do nothing while good people get
shredded in the machine - they aren't actively trying to sharpen the machine's
teeth.

Even the police who make mistakes, I would guess, are usually doing so out of
laziness. The details take too much effort to see. The circumstances are
_always_ complicated. It's much easier to be happy if you are always "just
doing your job". Check the boxes, go home and watch football.

The solution here is not to cynically label the system as unrepentantly evil,
but rather to offer inducements to their job properly, by for example
installing ubiquitous surveillance, and allowing supervisors (people with
higher intelligence and morality) to review and punish police mis-behavior,
and reward exemplary behavior.

~~~
enraged_camel
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not suggesting that the _majority_ is evil. On the
contrary, the majority are simply lazy and complacent. In 1984 this was
captured perfectly. There is the Inner Party, who is a small, elite group who
fabricate the lies and call the shots. There's the Outer Party, the relatively
uneducated and loyal group that naively believes in the party's ideals and
does its bidding (e.g. the police), and there's the general populace (what
Orwell labeled "the proles).

The most remarkable thing about the setting in 1984 is that almost everyone
believes that the Party is altruistic and noble and does everything (including
conducting wars) for the greater good, and that any imperfections in the way
the system works are unintended and can be fixed. Indeed, keeping up this
illusion is so important for social order that it is the primary motivation
behind the Inner Party's desire for total control through things like state-
sponsored propaganda and ubiquitous surveillance.

------
tzs
> The test, which is used by other employers, not just law enforcement, poses
> questions such as: “In the set of words below, what word is different from
> the others? A. Beef. B. Mackerel. C. Veal. D. Bacon E. Lamb.”

I hate that kind of question. There are at least two obvious answers:

B. The others are all food that comes from domesticated land mammals. Mackerel
as a food comes from a fish. Mackerel is also different because it is both the
name of the animal and the name of the meat: mackerel comes from mackerels,
whereas beef comes from cows and bulls, as does veal, bacon comes from pigs,
and lamb comes from sheep.

D. Bacon is a specific preparation of meat (cured) from specific parts (sides
or back) of the pig. The others can be prepared in a variety of ways and can
come from more regions of the animal.

~~~
dllthomas
Also possibly, "D. Bacon is treif/haram, the others can be kosher/halal."

------
iveqy
I cant see anything wrong with this. It's just smart hiring.

The error is first done when you hire detectives and excutives exclusively
from the cop force, because then you start with a bad selection (since beeing
a good cop and a good detective is two different things).

------
drpgq
Does anyone know how much it costs to have a job applicant do the Wonderlic
test?

I have a small side business with a friend that has one employee and we're
about to hire another one and have long been curious about using the Wonderlic
test.

~~~
abritishguy
Why don't you google it and find out?

------
subpublic
I heard that both cops and taxi drivers aren't suited for creative and
theoretical thinkers. Mainly because it's a lot of waiting. They will get
bored and quit.

~~~
Lendal
I drove a taxi for a year back in the 90's. Most drivers do play the waiting
game, but that wasn't for me. The company I worked for awarded call-ins to the
closest cab available rather than whoever waited the longest, which meant that
you could develop a strategy of being at the right place at the right time to
optimize your fares. This turned out to be a much more lucrative strategy than
the sit-and-wait deals. I rarely drove more than a mile or two without a fare.
Competing for fares can be quite challenging and rewarding in the right
situation. In the end I didn't quit because of boredom. I quit because taxi
drivers were getting killed in their cabs too often.

~~~
mwg986
Where were you driving taxis? I was reading your comment expecting "I quit
because I moved on to another profession" or anything else that wasn't taxi
drivers getting killed.

~~~
Lendal
Jacksonville. Certain areas of town are known for high crime and you take a
risk working those parts of town. This was a long time ago, but two or three
drivers got killed in like a month's time. It sucks for the people who live in
those areas that they can't get good taxi service but you only get one chance
at life. I can understand that desperate people do desperate things, but I am
not desperate. I like my life so I prefer to stay away from those areas of
town even today.

------
wldcordeiro
It looks like the servers are getting brought down by the HN traffic.

------
nautical
sherlock

------
fiatmoney
Another "advantage" of the inverse cutoff is that it reduces the racial
disparity in test-based hiring.

~~~
Someone1234
That statement is predicated on the assumption that one race is smarter than
another, which is unlikely to be true.

~~~
callahad
There _is_ a persistent scholastic "achievement gap" between races in the US,
which jives with fiatmoney's comment: a sufficiently unscrupulous (racist!)
employer could use standardized testing as a proxy for racial discrimination.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_gap_in_the_United_States#Evidence_of_the_racial_achievement_gap:_National_Assessment_of_Educational_Progress_.28United_States.29)

(FWIW, I recently heard the term "opportunity gap" as an alternative to
"achievement gap," and I quite like it: it puts the burden on society to
improve education, rather than blaming students for "failing" to surmount
inequity.)

~~~
dragonwriter
"acheivement gap" is a factual description of the outcome being described,
"opportunity gap" (when used in the same context) is a (reasonable) hypothesis
about the (or, used in a weaker sense, a contributing) cause of that outcome.

------
sosuke
Having independent thought is hard to control in making a force of people. To
have a force, an army, a unit of people, they have to respond predicatively to
all commands. If you put together a force you must believe without doubt that
they will follow your command. Police are selected and conditioned
accordingly. The military does this as well, training people to kill, and be
killed. In previous engagements having people think twice meant death of
themselves or others. You had to condition your units to run out into bullets,
one after the other, until you made enough of an advance to kill the enemy or
die trying. I don't worry about average intelligence officers, but I do worry
about average intelligence commanders, judges, and people in control of these
forces. When you join they army they will always place you in the position
that most suits your psych test, or will even reject you if needed. How is
this different? Don't become a cop, become a detective, become an FBI agent,
become a judge, or public defender and volunteer firefighter.

~~~
nishonia
What you are describing might be true of other countries, but that isn't the
way it works in the US. You aren't too far off on the military training issue,
immediate obedience to orders is incredibly important - at the lowest ranks.
The US military has an extremely long institutional memory, and over a couple
hundred years they've figured out a way of doing this that works pretty well.
The conditioning for immediate obedience to orders and illusion of immortality
wears off after a couple of years, right around the time that personnel start
picking up rank and assuming positions of responsibility over others. So by
that time they won't be charging any machinegun nests, they'll be in a
position to order others to do so - at this point it should be clear to you
why filtering out intelligent people is a bad idea :) The conditioning wears
off, but you can't fix stupid.

~~~
sosuke
I think you're right, and as someone else said the commanders, chiefs and
detectives are promoted, not hired in, which makes limiting intelligent hires
a terrible plan for longevity.

