OK, time to speak up. I am sure I am not the first person to think about the following issue, and have come to the conclusion that maybe it’s time to put it on the table. At the website, balancecareers.com, the following statement appears: “It’s estimated that more than 90 percent of law enforcement agencies in the United States require the psychological screening of their applicants. By comparison, only about 65 percent use a polygraph exam, and 88 percent employ drug screening.”
So, before a person can become a police officer they must pass a psychological screening process. The reasons seem obvious — that if you’re going to arm a person, you want to know what their propensities are and whether or not it’s likely that the prospective officer will misuse or abuse that power by ignoring protocols for reasons that have nothing to do with established guidelines for professional conduct.
It seems to me that arming a person with the power to alter, change, eliminate or escalate established norms for procedures, which inherently, and in some cases permanently, affect the lives and prospects of the persons under the jurisdiction of that person carries the same risks.
Currently, our elective and appointment procedures effectively ignore the possibility that the person seeking elective office, or appointment to a position of power, other than police officers, may have a psychological profile that shows that person to be unfit for the office being sought.
Shouldn’t the constituents and/or appointing panel be entitled to know the makeup of the person seeking their vote or approval other than what the candidate tells them or the media discovers? For example, if two persons are seeking the same office, wouldn’t you, as a person deciding who to back, want to know if one or both of them was a self-absorbed narcissist or had some other psychological disorder?
How would such a process be instituted? It would seem reasonable that persons seeking office or appointment should, as a prerequisite to applying, be required to have a psychological or psychiatric evaluation by a qualified doctor or panel of doctors appointed by the American Medical Association or other independent, unbiased source. Depending on the degree of power being sought, i.e. city council to president, the extent of the evaluation might vary from psychological screening like a police candidate to a panel of three qualified psychiatrists.
Who pays for the evaluations? It seems an obvious solution is that the person seeking the office/appointment would be responsible for the costs of the evaluation.
Would this process deter some people from running for or seeking an office? Probably so, but if the concern of having to submit to such an evaluation for the education of the public or body from whom you are seeking approval leads to a decision not to proceed, it’s likely a good thing.
We the people deserve to know who and what we are electing/appointing to offices of power, and whether or not they appear to be reasonable, stable and capable individuals.
Victor Cox is a resident of Kailua-Kona.