Psychological Screening for the Recruitment in Police - Essay Example

If police officers are driven by personal interests and biases, the public will suffer a lot. Current criminals are smart enough to confuse the investigating officers and the ability of the police officers in recognizing the malpractices of the criminals is important in maintaining law and order in a country.

Dominating mentality is natural for all human beings. Police officers are getting the authority to dominate others through legal channels. If they try to use this authority simply to dictate to others, such authority may yield more harm than good. So, it is necessary to make sure that the police recruits can use their power judiciously once they got their appointment. Psychological tests or screening are necessary to assess whether the police recruits would be able to use their power judiciously or not
Courage is one of the necessary qualifications required for the police officer post. Cowards can never excel in police departments. The threats from the criminals and terrorists are attaining serious dimensions at present and the police officer should be able to counter all such attempts with courage. Only the psychological screening will reveal the abilities of a police recruit in tackling difficult situations in which courage is necessary. In short, psychological screening is necessary to police recruits to assess or forecast their future behavior.

Vicarious liability is the liability of the superior for the acts of his subordinates. For example, an employee may feel that his manager has the authority to fire him. The employer need not give such authority to the manager. Here the employee’s belief is developed simply because of his unawareness of the organizational culture in his firm. Here the employer is forced to take vicarious liability for the acts of his manager because of the misunderstandings between the employee about his employer and manager.

The chain of command is the order in which the authority and power of the top management are being exercised upon the employees at different levels. If the top management should ensure that all the employees in the organization have the right knowledge about the power, duties, and responsibilities of each employee working in that firm. Otherwise, employees may keep wrong inferences about the authority of other employees and the employer has vicarious liability in such cases for the wrong assumptions of the employees.

Harassment in the workplace is common all over the world and America is also not an exception. Most workplace harassment are taking place because of the employee’s unawareness of his rights and the rights of his superior. The superiors often try to make the subordinate believe that he has enough power to take any actions against the employee. The employee may try to keep silent over the superior’s torture in such situations and when any disputes occur. In such cases, the employer is responsible to answer the questions about the torture, if he failed to give adequate information to the victim about the power structure in the organization well before the employee starts his work in that organization. As per vicarious liability rule, “employers should establish anti-harassment policies and complaint procedures covering all forms of unlawful harassment” (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

“An injury inflicted by positive, willful, and aggressive conduct, or by design, as opposed to an injury caused by negligence or resulting from an accident” can be put under intentional tort whereas “the failure to do something that a reasonable person would do in the same circumstances or the doing of something a reasonable person would not do” can be put under the label of negligent tort (Tort Law)

Intentional tort and negligent tort have a lot of differences. The major difference between these two is concerning the intentions of the culprit. In the case of intentional tort, the plaintiff should prove the culprit or the accused committed the crime with certain intentions. For example, if a person committed a murder, the plaintiff should prove the intentions of the murder in intentional tort. However, in negligent tort, it is not necessary for the plaintiff to prove the intentions of the accused. Suppose a person killed his wife, because of the suspected affairs of his wife with another person. Read More