NCJ Number
182922
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 48 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2000 Pages: 63-65
Date Published
April 2000
Length
3 pages
Annotation
A team established by the Law Enforcement Resource Center (LERC) of Minnesota developed a means of identifying candidates with the skills and attitudes that complement community policing; this article reports on the applicant evaluation tool developed by this team.
Abstract
The new applicant evaluation tool, called POST-21, brings the hiring process to a more personal level by evaluating the applicants' "community" perspective; assists agencies in finding candidates who are "service-minded" as well as those with a traditional crime-fighting mindset; and provides a means of reducing costs by identifying candidates who are compatible with the community policing philosophy, thus reducing training costs after selection. The test is an add-on exam for an agency's overall applicant evaluation and selection process. It consists of four parts: an evaluation of the applicant's "policing orientation," or whether a person has the ability and inclination to use a variety of policing strategies in working with the community; a series of questions that test the applicant's flexibility in responses; an evaluation of the applicant's realistic expectations of police officer duties; and an essay section on problem solving techniques. Six community policing experts from around the country reviewed the POST-21 item-by-item, and three separate evaluations were conducted to determine which questions were valid and suitable for the test. In field evaluations, all test subjects were able to complete the test within 1 hour and 15 minutes. Completed exams are sent to LERC to be scored.