Too smart to be a cop
Sops
Join Date: 2003-07-03 Member: 17894Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-07-03 Member: 17894Members, Constellation
in Discussions
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,†Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.â€<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1#.TwOLnPLsRZF" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&am...=1#.TwOLnPLsRZF</a>
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,†Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.â€<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1#.TwOLnPLsRZF" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&am...=1#.TwOLnPLsRZF</a>
Comments
Kind of like not accepting a big strong guy with sausage-like fingers into some job that requires precision with fingertips (sewing?), or someone with a small frame to do heavy lifting.
And if so, could you elaborate on why you think that is? Which part of his work would his high intelligence hamper him in? In the same way a small, frail person cannot lift heavy objects, what task required of him is he unable to perform?
The official explanation for it is "that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training." This I find an understandable attitude at least, although I suspect that it is more likely to be a knee-jerk reaction to a high turnover rate than a policy based on rational thinking and solid statistics.
I have run into that wall myself, when I applied to Maersk's officer training program. In my case the rejection was based on a much vaguer "personality test," but they contended that I'd probably either quit the education partway through or quit soon after graduation. Frustrating, but what the hell. It's a private company, nobody should force them to employ me.
But a public service is a different matter. Rejecting someone for being too smart is suspect. We're talking about one of the pillars of civilized society here, law enforcement. Barring access to people for speculative reasons could easily be misconstrued.
Imagine if you rejected an applicant for being an atheist: "The first time you see a traffic victim who got squeezed in half between a bus and a brick wall you would probably quit your job because you have no faith to help you through the mental anguish." Voila, I have invented a bogus but superficially reasonable excuse for keeping atheists out of the police force. <i>Commence the purge.</i>
Of course I'm exaggerating. I don't think this is part of the oligarch conspiracy to turn modern democracy into a mockery of a government while the Iron Heel grinds the working class into paste. This is probably just a case of some police bigwig going "we have too high turnover, do something about it!" that turned into a retarded policy. But it's a retarded policy nonetheless, and unless they can find some really solid justification for it they need to drop it and try maybe not asking their officers to pepper-spray peaceful protesters - maybe THAT will reduce turnover.
And if so, could you elaborate on why you think that is? Which part of his work would his high intelligence hamper him in? In the same way a small, frail person cannot lift heavy objects, what task required of him is he unable to perform?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, just that someone else thought that. Me, I can't imagine why you would want a maximum intelligence limit on any job, but there it is.
EDIT: To elaborate a bit, my first reaction to this was "That's stupid". But then I thought that it was in fact so stupid, it was weird. So there must be some reason for this policy. A good one, to get something like that passed.
It's good that it gets brought to their attention though, since it might require re-evaluation.
The policy is "Those who are smarter than xyz are assumed to get bored and quit", right?
And if so, could you elaborate on why you think that is? Which part of his work would his high intelligence hamper him in? In the same way a small, frail person cannot lift heavy objects, what task required of him is he unable to perform?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is some logic to support that, an obviously intelligent, inquisitive, mentally agile person would probably not be satisfied in a menial job, and giving them a potentially traumatic job such as police work would also be a questionable idea.
Sometimes the most useful person is someone not bright enough to get bored, and not introspective enough to think too much about what they do.
It's the same reason you wouldn't make assembly line robots self aware, it would simply introduce more possibility for failure. Putting a very complex person in a very simple job when you could instead put a simple person in it doesn't make sense, it's a waste of the complex person's abilities and they would quite possibly not be very good at the job entirely because of their complexity.
Sometimes the most useful person is someone not bright enough to get bored, and not introspective enough to think too much about what they do.
It's the same reason you wouldn't make assembly line robots self aware, it would simply introduce more possibility for failure. Putting a very complex person in a very simple job when you could instead put a simple person in it doesn't make sense, it's a waste of the complex person's abilities and they would quite possibly not be very good at the job entirely because of their complexity.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Careful now, you're in danger of being labeled a realist.
This speaks to the bigger problem of that "overly qualified" thing, though. For some reason, discrimination based on over qualification seems more sinister than discrimination based on under qualification. Is it because the only person you're potentially hurting by taking a position you're over qualified for is yourself? I guess unless you consider the more abstract consequences, such as the value of work you <i>could</i> have done if you didn't <i>waste</i> yourself. But that's just as hard to quantify as the question of how much terrorism was stopped by invading Iraq.
The point is, in a free society, if you can do a job and you want to do it, you should have every right to try.
I'm still saying this sounds like someone who wanted to be seen as "proactive about the high turnover rate" but went about it in a hare-brained way.
that made me laugh. Whats to say he just likes working in law enforcement type jobs.
Sometimes I actually feel sorry for Americans with your really bad police system... (emphasis on system)
I'm still saying this sounds like someone who wanted to be seen as "proactive about the high turnover rate" but went about it in a hare-brained way.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When it's something like the police force, you really can't afford to cater to people's desires.
Just because they really want to join, does not mean it is wise or responsible to allow them to join.
The police force is a vital public service, their members must be chosen according to suitability, not idealism. The police force cannot afford to not work because of idealistic hiring policies.
Just because they really want to join, does not mean it is wise or responsible to allow them to join.
The police force is a vital public service, their members must be chosen according to suitability, not idealism. The police force cannot afford to not work because of idealistic hiring policies.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dunno, that starts to sound a little totalitarian. The idea of a standing police force being a necessity is a little authoritarian, too. In a big city I suppose it has to be there, but only as a consequence of the city's growth. The point is that the police force serves the public, not the government. And also, the government serves the public, not itself.
When you start talking about deciding what makes an acceptable police officer, you have to start talking about who decides what an acceptable police officer is. If you think a government body must determine that, you're in dangerous territory.
When you start talking about deciding what makes an acceptable police officer, you have to start talking about who decides what an acceptable police officer is. If you think a government body must determine that, you're in dangerous territory.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The police force does serve the public, in fact one police officer generally serves many members of the public.
Therefore, simple logic dictates that when selecting that police officer from the public, you cannot serve his interests above the interests of the people he will then serve. He must give up his rights to preserve those of others. Allowing him to be a bad police officer to make him feel better is worse because it is the government handing out special powers irresponsibly, which then go on to affect dozens or hundreds of people.
A degree of authoritarianism and totalitarianism is required in any government, because that is the nature of government, if you had none of either you wouldn't have a government.
Let's try a hypothetical, shall we? A black man applies to be a police officer. He scores above average on all tests, but he is rejected. The stated reason is that "as a black man in an overwhelmingly caucasian police force, he may feel like an outsider. He may feel ostracized, and he may have trouble fitting in with his colleagues. He may feel disenchanted with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training."
Does that argument sound any less reasonable than the one centered around intelligence? We have now effectively barred black people from the police force. And the same reasoning can be used on hispanics, asians, homosexuals, atheists, any minority - even women are a minority in the police force. But all of them are now banned from the police force. I don't think I need to explain how that would be a problem.
I would say in the modern day that it probably is not strong enough, as I don't think a black man would be ostracised too heavily because of his skin colour in a modern police force, but if it was say, 60 years ago? Yes I'd be very hesistant to hire a black man to work on a police force precisely because I don't think he would get along well with the other officers, and also I don't think he would be sufficiently respected by the members of the public he is responsible for.
Of course there is always the possibility that you could hire him particularly to police predominantly black neighborhoods, taking advantage of racism to facilitate better policing, and that might justify putting up with any other issues that would arise. This is also probably the best reason to have a wide range of ethnicities in a police force I would say, and is really the only reason I would suggest paying much attention to race as part of the hiring procedure. Nowadays I would actually say you should probably have more ethnic minorities in the police than would proprortionally represent the population, as a lot of crime, especially in cities, occurs in places with lots of minorities living in them, because of the whole link between crime and social class and social class and race and that sort of thing.
Of course it isn't <i>nice</i> to say that, but nice is a luxury for people who don't have any responsibility. Saying you should hire more black people to help tackle crime in black neighborhoods is just as horrible and probably racist as saying you shouldn't hire any black people because they might make the rest of the policemen uncomfortable, but it doesn't make it any less sensible.
I don't however think that hiring intelligent people makes the same sort of sense, because for one, there aren't that many particularly intelligent people in the world, for two, they probably don't commit much crime because they are intelligent enough not to need to, and three, the kind of crime they would commit is probably not within the purview of a beat cop, so hiring smart coppers to help you police the smart people ghettos doesn't make sense. But you still have all the downsides.
Faced with the choice between being nice and being effective, I'd choose effective every time.
Yes, equality means not always just taking the easy path. But that's no excuse.
If upholding the law fairly and equally for all requires the police force to be composed of people of different race and social class and intelligence, then that rather suggests that people in general are not equal, because otherwise why would you need all different kinds of them?
And if people are not equal, then pretending that they are when you hire them is very very silly, and discriminating based on race or religion or social class or intelligence is not arbitrary, it's entirely justified because it has an effect on how people do their job.
You can't have it both ways, either people of different inherent characterstics such as race or intellect are equal and thus it doesn't matter who you say yes or no to, and all decisions based on those factors are arbitrary, so there is no reason to have an ethnically diverse police force. Or alternatively people of different inherent characteristics are not equal and any decision based on those factors are most certainly not arbitrary.
Personally I favor the latter catergory, race, intelligence, social class, all of these remain important differences between people, whether we like it or not. Society sees people as different because of these, and that makes them different because it affects how society treats them. There are also non-social differences. I wouldn't send an intelligent man to war, I wouldn't send a stupid man to run a scientific organisation, I wouldn't send a white man to lead a police task force dealing with ethnic crime. The world is full of horrible ideas and pretending they don't exist doesn't achieve anything. Understanding them and using them to your own, less horrible ends however, that can achieve quite a bit.
I just don't think that equality is achieved by saying 'la la la we're all the same everybody be friends now'. Because people are not the same, frankly I don't think they should be the same, but perhaps I can bring them a little closer together by, say, hiring a black man who grew up in a predominantly black crime filled area to direct crime prevention in that area. His understanding of what he is trying to prevent and the fact that he will probably be able to command more respect from people there than a rich white policeman would, might just mean that in the future, there won't be as many impoverished black men who grew up around crime and vice, and maybe that will help said black men integrate a little better with the rich white men who live in the other parts of the city, and people actually get a little more equal.
Of course saying that is horribly racist and entirely discriminatory and completely an example of hiring and dismissing candidates based on things entirely beyond their control. Is it unfair that the job was not offered to the rich white policeman? Yes. Does it spit in the face of the ideals of equality? Yes. Does it do far more to actually make people equal than sticking your fingers in your ears and ignoring the truth? Yes.
Erm, what sort of justice ignores the facts of the case?
If someone who is mentally deficient kills someone I'm pretty sure he doesn't deserve to go to jail, what's the point? He isn't likely to learn from it, properly functioning humans have difficulty learning from it, the sensible course of action is to put him in an insittution where he can't hurt people.
People who are not equal do not deserve to be treated as equal before the law because to do so would do them a great disservice, pretending everyone is the same when they most certainly are not is an an abhorrent practise.
A police force that does not dscriminate against its own members to ensure only the best suited are chosen cannot be trusted to police the rest of society at all.
So things like skin colour are not a major influence on your ability to be a neurosurgeon, therefore discriminating based on race doesn't make much sense in that instance.
If you need someone to play Othello in a movie based on the play, race <i>is</i> a factor. If I have to watch a white guy in blackface pretending to be an african general, I'm probably not going to be able to take the movie seriously.
Is intelligence a factor in being an effective police officer? I'd say yes, I would expect people to be hired or not hired based on lacking or overabundant intelligence in that job.
There is no universal rule which fits all cases.