ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that police psychologists—those working on behalf of law enforcement departments as evaluators—often use the applicants’ revelations of past indiscretions to disqualify them unfairly. It discusses ethical conflicts associated with advising prospective police candidates about the dangers they encounter by making inadvertent admissions. The chapter explores the recommendations for improving the police selection procedure with respect to the oral interview. Apart from administering standardized tests and reviewing applicants’ background records; they must employ face-to-face interviews to assess the demeanor, candor, and intelligences of those potential police officers. The applicant tends to provide it trustingly in an attempt to be transparent to the police examiner as well as to demonstrate that the behavior(s) in question no longer play a part in the applicant’s life. Once job applicants admit to something that should have been kept to them, police examiners then tend to hold the job applicant’s feet to the fire.
