Preemployment Psychological Evaluations

Pre-employment psychological screening of Public Safety Position applicants first began to gain popularity and widespread acceptance during the period between 1970 and 1980.  Initially, this screening was adopted mostly by urban agencies often in reaction to alleged civil rights violations by their Officers and subsequent protests, legal actions and in some cases civil disturbances. The so called “negligent hiring and retention” legal claims began to proliferate in those years, occasionally resulting in large monetary payouts to Plaintiffs. The psychological screening of applicants became one of the first agency responses to these events, since agencies could implement screening rather quickly at a reasonable cost.  Unfortunately, many agencies and contracted screening psychologists knew little about the intricacies of this screening or how to effectively implement or utilize the results. As a consequence, a plethora of screening procedures emerged, many of which were of little use to the agency.  

The goal and purpose of pre-employment screening is to screen-out those applicants identified as having high-risk factors for performance of the Public Safety position vs. those applicants who are absent these risk factors and possess traits deemed suitable for the position. To accomplish this goal, our philosophy is quite simple; effective programs and effective people lead to effective organizations.  It is the contracted psychological firm’s job to create a state-of-the-art screening program and to educate/train relevant agency personnel in the correct application of the system. It is the agency’s responsibility to provide motivated selection personnel and policies consistent with the difficult but critical task of identifying the most qualified applicants for final hire. Since no one selection procedure provides all the answers, a systemic and comprehensive approach must be utilized. To achieve maximum effectiveness, agency personnel and members of the psychological firm must be willing to communicate and work as a coordinated team when necessary. We pride ourselves on remaining constantly available to each of our clients and always provide, whatever, extra input is necessary to make our screenings as effective as possible.Improving upon selection procedures is a constant endeavor.

Important Information:

  • Testing is conducted at our centrally located office at 9960 NW 116th Way, Suite 12, Medley, Florida 33178

    • Testing is conducted Monday-Friday, beginning at 9:30AM

  • LEPCA is able to conduct remote evaluations, at the agency’s request, and requires video monitoring of all applicants throughout the evaluation day

  • All personality assessment instruments are immediately scored in our office as each applicant finishes their individual tests.

  • Concise and job-related final written reports and a related background questionnaire are generated on each applicant and posted for review and/or downloading on our website within 72 hours of completion of testing.  However, verbal feedback or a final report can be provided within a 24-hours of testing on special request.

  • Our evaluation practices conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA.)

  • Our screening system meets or exceeds all the recommendations and guidelines of the following organizations.  International Association of Chiefs of Police, CALEA, Council of Police Psychologists, National Institute of Justice and the California Post Commission.

Helpful Resource:

International Association of Chiefs of Police Preemployment Psychological Evaluation Guidelines