Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#21

Post by Lendal » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

subpublic wrote: post #11

I heard that both cops and taxi drivers aren't suited for creative and theoretical thinkers. Mainly because it's a lot of waiting. They will get bored and quit.

I drove a taxi for a year back in the 90's. Most drivers do play the waiting game, but that wasn't for me. The company I worked for awarded call-ins to the closest cab available rather than whoever waited the longest, which meant that you could develop a strategy of being at the right place at the right time to optimize your fares. This turned out to be a much more lucrative strategy than the sit-and-wait deals. I rarely drove more than a mile or two without a fare. Competing for fares can be quite challenging and rewarding in the right situation. In the end I didn't quit because of boredom. I quit because taxi drivers were getting killed in their cabs too often.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#22

Post by Kalium » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:25 PM UTC

louhike wrote: post #12

falcolas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pool of detectives is typically pulled from line police, isn't it? By restricting the IQ of those enforcing the laws, you're creating a poor candidate pool for detectives.

In France, detectives and police officers have to go the university to study the law and other subjects. I thought it was the same in most countries, isn't it?

Not always. In the US, more common is a sort of police academy. Actual higher education is not really required.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#23

Post by javajosh » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:25 PM UTC

This implies we have a police force that is unable to sense or react to nuance in a situation, and who implement a fast but error prone pattern matching algorithm to identify criminality - which is entirely consistent with their behavior.

I suppose this wouldn't be a problem if we had a justice system that, presumably powered by better brains, could quickly throw out the inevitable false positives this quick and dirty algo produces. But the justice system is so slow, so broken, and prone to pro-police bias that it exists primarily to get as much punishment as possible out of those the unintelligent police have tagged as "criminals". That is, the police are the de facto judge, jury, and executioner, and they wield that power with all the delight that you might imagine someone of low intelligence would experience at being given such power.

(Of course, there is still a way to avoid a false positive if you have a great deal of money, which is probably why there is no great pressure to reform the system. Otherwise you're spending 3 years on Riker's without a trial.)

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#24

Post by vonmoltke » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:26 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #8

jdmitch wrote: post #2

I definitely had a friend once who was told she had received too high a score for the police job she had applied for. I thought I remember at the time some mention of the rationale being that the police force didn't want people who were too independent-thinking to simply follow orders. Maybe that was just my friend's interpretation though!

I've heard that from others and got a similar impression after I did well on the ASVAB (US military aptitude test) and was speaking with a recruiter. It's possibly true, but it's also possible (and a less malicious explanation) that they just know you won't be happy in the position yourself and may not perform well as a result. In hindsight, the career path I was interested in in the military would have made me very…

I had a similar experience, wherein a National Guard recruiter actually talked me out of joining the army for that reason.

I also flirted with the Navy nuke program as I was finishing up my EE degree, but decided to abort the process mid-stream. At my first job after graduating my cubemate was a former Navy electrican, stationed on a carrier. What he told me about the nukes made me happy I chose to abort.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#25

Post by fiatmoney » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

Another "advantage" of the inverse cutoff is that it reduces the racial disparity in test-based hiring.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#26

Post by Someone1234 » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:31 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #25

Another "advantage" of the inverse cutoff is that it reduces the racial disparity in test-based hiring.

That statement is predicated on the assumption that one race is smarter than another, which is unlikely to be true.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#27

Post by telecuda » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

Fast-forward 8 or so years to today, where crimes involving mobile devices or computers are the norm. Police departments are recruiting tech-savvy young adults out of high school, then sending them to training on digital forensics and the like. Everything goes well for a couple years until they hit the agency's pay ceiling and move to the private sector. There are plenty of opportunities for smart people in law enforcement today that don't equate to boredom - compensation has more to do with it IMO.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#28

Post by BariumBlue » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #24

TallGuyShort wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that from others and got a similar impression after I did well on the ASVAB (US military aptitude test) and was speaking with a recruiter. It's possibly true, but it's also possible (and a less malicious explanation) that they just know you won't be happy in the position yourself and may not perform well as a result. In hindsight, the career path I was interested in in the military would have made me very…

I had a similar experience, wherein a National Guard recruiter actually talked me out of joining the army for that reason. I also flirted with the Navy nuke program as I was finishing up my EE degree, but decided to abort the process mid-stream. At my first job after graduating my cubemate was a former Navy electrican, stationed on a carrier. What he told me about the nukes made me happy I chose to abort.

as someone thinking about navy nukes, may i ask what was unpalatable about it?

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#29

Post by devinmontgomery » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:34 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #17

"However, the courts sided with the lower police department. In its ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the city did not discriminate against Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test. In other words, no one who was deemed “too smart” for the job after taking the intelligence test was hired." You can apply that logic to race too: "We tested ALL appli…

High intelligence isn't what's called a "protected class," meaning smart people have not historically been discriminated against. That's the difference.

Re: Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

#30

Post by nishonia » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:34 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #19

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #3

meaning that at least according to the test, it requires more intelligence to sell insurance than to solve crimes.) Police do not solve crimes. Police enforce laws. Detectives solve crimes. I would expect that detectives and police officers would be held to different standards.

I think you are describing something similar to the US Military where there are to "paths" into it: officers and enlisted. In the US, there is one for police: police academy and then work your way up the ranks to detective, etc.

That isn't even close to being true. SNCOs and WOs need to be pretty clever, and they start off as E-1s. It works for the military, but then they aren't taking the short sighted position of filtering out folks who are "too smart" to be an E-1.