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The Chicago Solution To Tests With ?Disparate Impact?

The Chicago Sun Times reported yesterday [HatTip to Meep, a frequent commenter] that

[t]he Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam to bolster minority hiring, save millions on test preparation and avert costly legal battles that have dogged the exam process for decades....

This ?application-only process? appalled many current and former police officials.

?A background check and a psych [exam] alone will not eliminate some people who should not be there,? said Brad Woods, who ran the Personnel Division under former Chicago Police Superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.

Calling an application-only process a ?step backward? and the ?wrong way to go,? Woods said, ?When you lower your quality, you will get poor police service and more complaints. ... Whenever you make it easier to be the police, you?re doing the citizens and the Police Department a disservice.?

Charlie Roberts, who ran the training division from 1995 to 1999, noted that there are ?eleven tracks? recruits must go through in the police academy, including the law and the municipal code.

?If you don?t give someone at least a reading comprehension test, can you just put them in and risk the possibility of having so many of them fail? That could get quite expensive,? Roberts said.

?We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level. What do you think you?ll get if you have no screening process??

?Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the idea ?sounds too stupid to be true.??

Oh, I don?t know. This is Chicago, after all. Letting in everybody probably reduces the role of bribes, graft, and corruption. I bet the mayor New Haven is wondering why he didn?t think of this solution to the ?disparate impact? problem before ordering tests for firefighters.

Full post as published by Discriminations on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).