Unit 9: Medical, Background, and Attitude Review

Conduct and Attitude Questionnaires

Some law enforcement agencies use questionnaires about attitudes and past behaviors as part of their screening process. These questionnaires are often given great weight. They will ask about your past history and your present attitudes. Typical questions include some like these: Have you ever used drugs? Have you ever been arrested? Did you get into trouble with teachers in school? Were charges ever brought against you in the military? Did you ever get drunk? If you were given an order that you did not agree with, would you obey it? Did you ever get parking or driving summonses?

You should give honest answers to all such questions. Still, there may be ambiguities in some questions. A question about drugs should be interpreted as a question about personal use of illegal drugs, not legal drugs and not about whether your friends use drugs. With a question about obeying orders even when you think they are wrong, most law enforcement agencies expect a candidate to say he or she will obey, even though one could imagine extreme conditions under which an officer might really be expected to disobey an improper or foolish order. Interpret questions about obeying orders in the context of reasonable orders.

Your answers to some of these questions may come up for discussion in the psychological interview. Candidates who are very ethical or religious (such as the children of clergy sometimes are) often encounter considerable difficulty with psychological screening. Such a person may honestly answer that he or she has absolutely never used any kind of drug whatsoever, never stolen anything whatsoever, never been in any trouble whatsoever in school, never drinks any alcohol whatsoever, etc. Unfortunately, people doing the psychological screening, especially if they are not fully trained professionals, often assume that a person who claims to be so perfect is lying; they do not look for a context in which to understand the candidate. If you are telling the truth but find that the interviewer is not believing you, do not challenge the interviewer. (How do you know ... ? What makes you so sure that ... ?). Instead, stick to the truth and explain yourself in terms of your basic upbringing, beliefs and attitudes.

There is no need to lie if you are asked about embarrassing past events. Many law enforcement candidates have been in trouble in school, committed minor offenses, been drunk on occasion, etc. These things in one’s past are quite different from being the local drug dealer or stabbing a neighbor who was playing a stereo too loud. The important thing is your present attitude toward past incidents. The law enforcement agency is probably not interested in hiring someone who plays down a past event or evades responsibility by saying such things as, “it was no big deal. Everybody does it. My friend made me do it.” It is best to acknowledge past incidents, admit a mistake, and let the interviewer move on to the next topic. Indeed, all that most interviewers want is an assurance that such behavior is in the past, is now viewed as having been immature, and is not part of one’s present lifestyle.