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Keywords Police, Legal matters, USA, Intelligence, Employment law
Abstract In the recent case of Jordan v. The City of New London a police applicant was denied employment because he scored too well on the cognitive ability portion of his written application test. The importance of the case stems from its potential impact on three areas. First, in a time of shrinking applications to police forces, legal decisions related to the selection process would appear significant. Second, the rejection of an applicant by a police department because he was thought too intelligent appears to create or reinforce negative stereotypes of police in the USA. Third, the case involves employment law, an area that has proven fertile ground for suits against the police. The article explores the case in detail as well as reporting the results of a survey of police mid-level managers concerning the impact of intelligence on various police administrative concerns.
Introduction
The police are an anomaly to our free society (Goldstein, 1977). They are given the power to limit individual freedoms including the use of moral suasion, cajolery, threat, and at times physical force while carrying out their mandate (Davis, 1969). Moreover, the police are invested with substantial amounts of individual discretion when deciding how to perform their duties. Concerns over police power have led to calls for increased diligence in their recruitment, selection, and training. Despite efforts to find and create better police officers, current anecdotal evidence suggests that some police departments are having a difficult time recruiting officers to fill empty positions (Flynn, 2001; Butterfield, 2001).
In the recent case of Jordan v. City of New London (2000) a police applicant was denied employment because he scored too well on the cognitive ability portion of his written application test. The importance of the case stems from its potential impact on three areas. First, in a time of shrinking applications to police forces, legal decisions related to the selection process would appear significant. Second, the rejection of an applicant by a police department because he was thought too intelligent appears to create or reinforce negative stereotypes of police in the USA. Third, the case involves employment law, an area that has proven fertile ground for suits against the police.
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