credit: bouldercolorado.gov
During my early career in law enforcement, I had the odd distinction of having two separate police chiefs in two separate law enforcement agencies in two separate states tell me that I was too intelligent to be a policeman. Readers may debate my intellect, as they often do, but I tell this little morality tale not to pat myself on the back of my brain, but to set up the story that follows. Those hapless police chiefs were giving me a more or less backhanded compliment. They weren’t my fans, yet I was so productive they couldn’t fire me without far more mistakes on my part than ten men could make. Yet, they obviously didn’t realize what they were saying about themselves and their own agencies, nor did they apparently appreciate the inherent irony.
My experience has taught me that police chiefs, sheriffs and politicians in general want police officers to be only smart enough and no smarter. Unfortunately, they really can’t say just what “smart enough” is. It’s rather like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who couldn’t come up with a definition of pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio, but noted “I know it when I see it.”
In 2011, I wrote about race based hiring imposed on police agencies by the Obama Administration. That’s bad enough. Racial quotas are an unmitigated disaster for public safety. But now we have the New London, CT police department that apparently knows what “smart enough” and “too smart” are. And a federal appeals court agrees. From Powerline:
Kurt Vonnegut’s classic short story “Harrison Bergeron” is clearly fiction, right? Right?
Check out this story from ABCNews today:
Court Okays Barring High IQs for Cops
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.”
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had ‘shown a rational basis for the policy.’ In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
A prison guard. Now there’s irony.
Sadly, this is not surprising. I certainly knew my fair share of intelligent cops, but the reality is that in any career, most people will be average or close to it, a few will be exceptional, and some will be awful. Most police agencies require at least a high school education, though some don’t go that far. Some actually require at least two years of college, but those are few and far between.
One can make a pretty good argument that a bachelor’s degree tends to make a cop more well-rounded and capable, but great cops are born, not made. Some people simply have the genetic endowment that produces excellent police officers. They see and understand things that others will never manage. It has surely been my experience that great cops are born and not made.
Yes, most people can learn most things most of the time. If this were not true, would anyone feel safe driving? But shouldn’t we expect a higher standard of those entrusted with the lives of others? Shouldn’t we want the most intelligent, otherwise fully qualified, people we can find to be police officers?
The Second Circuit is likely right on the law. The issue is what we expect of our politicians and hired managers. Actually, it’s really about what we expect of ourselves.
Police officers are expected to make decisions that would stymie Solomon, make them in fractions of a second, and be 100% accurate and correct. What’s amazing is they usually meet this standard.
So there is the question, gentle readers. What do you think? Should we strive to hire the most intelligent police officers we can find, or are those that score at least 20, which is probably a bit below average, more than good enough? Who do you want investigating the crime when you’re burglarized? Who do you want responding to the 911 call when someone is breaking into your home at zero-dark thirty? The 20 or the 27?
Stately McDaniel Manor 
Thanks for airing an issue of great concern to many of us, Mike: Hopelessly stupid cops, who kill innocents.
I submit that fielding cops with higher IQs would be far better than putting low-average dumb ones on the street. However, perhaps additional testing and screening to assess “judgment” and “courage” would be equally beneficial. Smart or dumb, a cop’s common sense and ability to THINK and exercise sound judgment, especially under duress, are as important as innate intelligence.
The supersized cop, who murdered my son, Off. Wm. Mosher, has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s 1) too stupid to be entrusted with a badge and firearm, and 2) panics, when under duress–and is devoid of courage. He’s far too quick to shoot and kill. Psychopaths like Mosher should never even be hired, let alone turned loose on an unsuspecting public. As you know, Mosher’s proven his unfitness for police duty by shooting three people, killing two of them, in his first FIVE years on the Las Vegas Metro PD. And he’s still out there, primed and cocked to kill again.
Mike, I think a minimum IQ is required and beyond that, it is the desire of the individual that determines whether they are suited. My friend who runs the night shift at a nearby city and is one of it’s SWAT commanders, is no 27, much higher. What makes him successful, is his desire to help people. He told me one day that running down the scum bag that stole an old woman’s purse and returning it to the lady was the high point of his shift. This is the same guy whose team wins best of the west and places well in Urban Shield on a regular basis. He should be too elite to worry about stolen purses, but he is not. I watched him stop his lunch and walk out into traffic on El Camino to help a homeless man who had lost his hat.
Reblogged this on clarkcountycriminalcops.
Anybody ever told you were too smart to be a teacher, mr. McDaniel (as if our students only deserved mediocre minds)?
A smart teacher is pretty unwelcome, too.
And let us not forget the trend toward average performance or below is encouraged by many unions, as well
Dear Libby:
It’s Mike, please. No, I don’t hear that much in education, but I have, upon occasion, run into “superiors” that clearly wish I were a bit less insightful where their hair-brained schemes are involved.
Wow, I would have never guessed there can be an upper limit for intelligence as a job requirement. Always appreciate your take on things Mike.
Dear youwantthattoo:
Thanks! You’re most kind.
Different folks are good at different things. When I was just out of high school a buddy of mine worked at a gas station. It was in a big money area and was one of the last that had full service. He told me of customers that didn’t know how to pump their own gas, at which, I became a wee bit upset at how someone could be that dumb (I was good with a wrench and cars…). A few years later and I was a semester away from graduating from college. I was taking the general education requirement accounting class and failing miserably. I went to the instructor with a bit of a threat. I told him that if he gave me a “D” that I would not come back the next semester, if he gave me an “F” I would be back as I needed the class to graduate. I received a “D” and a lesson from the experience. Those folks that couldn’t pump their own gas may have known how to do something that I can’t. Like the accounting, that I can’t do for the life of me. (I did try my best, I just couldn’t get that one.)
Studies have shown the officers with genuine Bachelor Degrees are less likely to use excessive/deadly force and that’s enough for me to support better educated officers, Sadly here in Las Vegas, the LVMPD doesn’t even require a high school diploma, and I tell you our officers never fail to slid just under the bar, no matter how low the department sets it,
Maybe, just maybe, municipalities should focus on hiring as police officers people who possess the mindset that their chosen vocation is one that involves being a public servant. I think the moral fortitude, humility, and work ethic attendant with such mindset would far outweigh any measure of IQ.
Yes Chip, but unfortunately I know of no Court/EEOC-approved test to measure fortitude, humility, and work ethic. I’m not sure such test are even possible.
Sadly, the only means I know of to measure fortitude, humility, and work ethic involve subjective judgment. Such judgments are often difficult to defend in Court.
OTOH I.Q. tests, whatever we may think of them, are at least fairly well established measurements – however low their applicability. Bureaucrats tend to prefer well documented measurements, even if they have far less utility, over more useful metrics that might cause them legal difficulties.
And this is where I say: you probably don’t want to know what I think about EEOC approval, and where the government can stick their EEOC approvals…
I probably think about it the same way you do, Chip.
Unfortunately, those in power don’t care what either of us think.
This would explain why the clearance rates for violent crimes have plummeted in recent decades. While cops from the early 1960s, the Dragnet era, routinely solved over 90% of homicides, usually with an arrest of the perp, clearance rates have plummeted so that over 1/3 of killings are never solved. Many big cities have clearance rates of less than 1/3. Clearance rates have not improved during the recent, historic decline in murder rates even though the number of cops have doubled.
If we were to judge police by their actual job performance rather than their antigun propaganda, we would arrest most of them for loitering.
Hmm… I wonder if the current bad behavior by so many cops can be blamed on boredom… rather like coming home to find your dog has destroyed the couch because he was bored.
Failing your psychological test when applying to be a cop should be seen as a “GIFT”. You’re too smart to be a cop. Move on. But I must say, cops have higher intelligence than others in some areas, like being good in bed.
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