Psychological Profiling of Australian Police Officers: An Examination of Post-Selection Performance

Abstract

Jonathan Lough is a psychologist and independent research consultant in Melbourne, Australia. He specialises in research design, analysis and statistics, survey writing, and psychological assessment. Over the last three years, he has worked with a range of private and government clients, including ANZ Bank, Clemenger BBDO, ABSTRACTThe performance of two groups of Tasmania police employees (all of whom were constables or probationary constables) was evaluated after their first year of training and on-the-job employment. Group membership was a function of initial selection process -one group undertook detailed psychological profiling as part of their preemployment testing, and the other group did not. The non-screened group was compared to the profiled (screened) group across a range of performance measures. Across seven out of eight measures, the screened group outperformed the non-screened group, with four of the differences statistically significant. The screened group also had a lower dropout rate. The simplest explanation of results suggests that a different quality of applicant is selected by the psychological profiling system, when compared to more traditional processes such as simple selection interviews. Implications for future selection of police personnel in Australia are also discussed.

Psychological Profiling of Australian Police Officers: A Longitudinal Examination of Post-Selection Performance

“…Most research to date has tended to focus upon police forces in the United States (eg Guller, 1994a), often with other psychological instruments such as the MMPI (eg Workowski & Pallone, 1999), or on similar forms of the AIFP system in different Australian target populations, such as corrections officers (Byrne, 2001;Casey et al, 2001;Choy, 1998). Lough and Ryan's (2005) initial study represented the first real attempt to address all of these areas. The current study was performed with the intention of expanding and refining their earlier work.…”

“…Societal changes may be reflected in changing standards (and expectations) of the behaviour of both police officers and the citizens they serve. Lough and Ryan (2005) suggest that a notable strength of their earlier experimental design was the homogeneity and magnitude in size of the two groups. This allowed for enough instances of somewhat rare events (such as complaints and stress claims) to be meaningfully compared across the two groups.…”

“…More recently, Lough and Ryan (2005) examined the performance of AIFPscreened and non-screened police constables after one year of service. The screened group outperformed the nonscreened group across most performance variables.…”

“…He specialises in research design, analysis and statistics, survey writing, and psychological assessment. Over the last three years, he has worked with a range of private and government clients, including ANZ Bank, Clemenger BBDO, and the ABSTRACT The current study expands upon the work of Lough and Ryan (2005). The performance of two groups of Tasmania Police employees (all of whom were constables or probationary constables) was evaluated after their first two years of training and on-the-job employment.…”

“…In Australia, the uptake of psychological profiling has been more recent, and while it is used by a number of states, there is still very little published research evaluating its effectiveness. Lough and Ryan's (2005) study was one of the first directly to examine the performance outcomes after psychological profiling. The current study is the next logical step to that work.…”