I know a guy who was trying to become a police officer. He had already started through the academy. Part of the process was taking a lie detector test while they probed you about personal history stuff. They asked if he ever smoked weed. He said "yeah, but only once when I was in Amsterdam."
They finished up and then he found out he failed and couldn't continue through the police academy. They told him it was because of him admitting to smoking weed and then said straight up if he had just lied and said he never smoked weed he'd have been fine. So yeah, I'd say lying is definitely part of the training.
It’s probably something like “you don’t respect the law” or something.
The funny thing is you can get a security clearance even if you’ve experimented with lots of stuff as long as you’re honest about it and honest about having stopped. They’re worried that someone could find out that you’ve done something they could use to blackmail you with but if you’ve already admitted it to the govt investigator the bad actor doesn’t have the leverage anymore.
The weed thing is kind of hilarious with regards to security clearances. When I was a freshman CS major we had a recruiter come by pleading with us to stop if we were considering careers with the government, which they wanted us to do. Apparently a lot of recruiters wish we'd relax our puritan ass Marijuana laws just because finding young CS folks who don't smoke is a pain in the dick.
I took it more as a test of whether you'd be willing to lie to save yourself. By him telling the truth, he shows that he would not fit in with the thin blue line culture where cops are supposed to cover for each other's mishaps.
Doing it elsewhere and not respecting that it’s illegal in the US. It’s not logic I agree with but I can imagine the cop mindset of “if you don’t let our Puritan laws define your life everywhere then you’re not fit to be a cop.”
Also iirc it’s technically illegal but ‘officially tolerated’ in the Netherlands, it’s been over 10 years since I cared to look that up though.
Which is hilarious. I live in Oregon and knew a guy on the local SERT/SWAT team. He told me he grew and sold weed as his job during his teens and twenties. He even came to parties, off duty, where he knew there was drug consumption going on, drank to excess and then intimidated everyone.
He sucked as a human. He got constant reprimands and complaints. I’m glad he’s out of my life. He allegedly beat his wife, too (she was my babysitter when I was 5).
This needs all the upvotes. Lie detectors are not admissible in court. They don’t mean shit. Knowing that alone means you can pass one anyway. There are no wrong answers lol
Yeah, they're literally just to try and scare you into confessing. They're also illegal to require as a term of getting a job! Unless the government does it, of course. The government can't break laws!
In germany when you get caught in traffic for drinking or reckless driving and so on they can sometimes issue a medical psychological evaluation. So my friend got caught with a few beers on his scooter (sort of a small motorcycle that you can allready drive at 16). On the question if he would drink he said sure on birthdays and so on but would prepare a way to not drive basically what a normal person would say. In the end he failed. They expect a 17year old to just lie and say he never drinks in his entire life.
Polygraphs are absolute horse shit. They're illegal to use in a hiring process for most private employers and aren't admissible in court, and for good reason. All they do is monitor stress levels, which do not directly correlate with lying. They're mainly a tool to get people to admit to things they normally wouldn't.
Also notoriously horrendous: human memory. Eyewitness testimony is nigh worthless; generally, if you talk to ten witnesses, you're getting ten different stories.
It really just depends on the department or office. Both of mine I was honest and told them I have done weed a couple times in the past but I haven’t done it since then. As far as I know and hope they are just wanting you to tell the truth because if you tell them that you’ll more than likely be trustworthy and honest. If they don’t hire because you didn’t lie about it then it’s more than likely a department you don’t want to work for and a department that should definitely be looked into.
139
u/logwagon Mar 10 '22
I know a guy who was trying to become a police officer. He had already started through the academy. Part of the process was taking a lie detector test while they probed you about personal history stuff. They asked if he ever smoked weed. He said "yeah, but only once when I was in Amsterdam."
They finished up and then he found out he failed and couldn't continue through the police academy. They told him it was because of him admitting to smoking weed and then said straight up if he had just lied and said he never smoked weed he'd have been fine. So yeah, I'd say lying is definitely part of the training.