Too Err Is Human, And Forgivable For Cops

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Fewer applicants for the Cedar Rapids police will be disqualified thanks to the Civil Service Commission's decision on Dec. 9. While certain behavior was once enough to toss police hopefuls out of the running for the department, the same behavior may now be overlooked. The commission has decided that the mistakes applicants may have made as teenagers - past illegal drug use and minor traffic infractions, for example - should not influence the department's decision to hire new officers.

According to an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, police force qualifications currently state that an applicant cannot have used illegal drugs, other than marijuana, within the last 10 years or more than five times in a lifetime. As far as marijuana is concerned, potential officers cannot have used marijuana in the last two years or more than 15 times in a lifetime. Applicants who have had their driving privileges revoked or suspended within three years of the written exam, however, will be automatically excluded.

Disqualifying applicants because of their past behavior (or at least these particular types of incidents) seems a little extreme. Most people would probably agree that there is an enormous difference between the person they are now and the person they were as a teen. Experimenting with illegal and recreational drugs and driving dangerously has become sort of a coming-of-age ritual, like it or not. Young people may do these things out of curiosity, but typically, by the time adulthood sets in, these behaviors have become a thing of the past. Although this isn't always the case, and some adults still cling to these bad habits, the teenage years are often represented by trial and error.

The way the previous disqualification system worked, applicants could be excluded from becoming police officers simply for this behavior. Even though they may have realistically been more qualified than other applicants who hadn't made these mistakes as young adults, they were nevertheless tossed out. An applicant who still uses illegal drugs and drives recklessly should, without a doubt, be disqualified. Still, for those applicants who were once young and na've but who have since changed their behavior and are now looking to join the police force, the behavior should not be enough to discourage the Cedar Rapids police from hiring them.

In many ways, an applicant who has been reprimanded for using illegal drugs or committing minor traffic violations in the past would be an ideal candidate for the job, perhaps even more ideal than an applicant who had never used drugs before but had the same qualifications. For one, these future police officers are likely to have a better handle on this sort of behavior. An officer who has had no experience with these issues is less likely to know how to handle the situation. Understanding the criminal mind can be a very useful tool, and officers who have already dealt with these issues themselves in the past have an advantage over those officers who have never had to deal with them. These officers may even have a better idea of how to also prevent the behavior from occurring in the first place.

We aren't suggesting all police applicants should have, at one point in time, been criminals. In fact, the opposite is true. The police officers of the Cedar Rapids police and all police officers in general should be moral, upstanding citizens who can enforce the law fairly and adequately. However, an applicant's previous criminal behavior, so long as this criminal behavior is very minor, should not prohibit an applicant from serving as a police officer if he or she meets all other qualifications. Using past behavior to disqualify applicants will turn away many potentially successful officers, and it is unfair to use an applicant's past behavior (as long as the behavior is really a thing of the past) against them.


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Source: Daily Iowan
Copyright: 2008 Daily Iowan
Contact: Daily Iowan
Website: CR police: To err is human, and forgivable - Opinions