Ald. Beavers puts police psychology experts on hot seat for unfairness

Ald. Beavers puts police psychology experts on hot seat for unfairness

If the Center for Applied Psychological and Forensic Studies and law Enforcement and Psychological Services doesn't get its act together and stop failing minority police applicants in record numbers, Ald. William Beavers (7th) Tuesday said he'll move to cancel their contract.

And, it's a rather large joint contract too -- $500,000 a year.

Beavers hauled the two groups that provide psychological testing to Chicago police applicants before his Police and Fire Committee demanding to know why so many minority candidates flunked their psychological exam last year.

They were cross examined by Alds. Freddrenna M. Lyle (6th) and Leslie Hairston (5th) who like Beavers strongly objected to the firms not having a Black male psychologist to administer the psychological exams.

"Black males should be able to interview Black males," Beavers told reporters. While the psychologists claim they interview applicants at least 40-minutes, Beavers produced two witnesses one of whom works for him to say they were interviewed four or five-minutes. Beavers said that is unacceptable.

According to Beavers, those failing the psychological exam last year included one Asian female, 32 Black females, four Hispanic women, 15 white females for a total of 52 women.

Males failing included 9 Asians, 66 Blacks, 42 Hispanics, 68 whites for a total of 185 who failed. Those females who passed included: 3 Asians, 52 Blacks, 21 Hispanics and 45 whites for a total of 121 women.

Men who passed included 24 Asians, 130 Blacks, 120 Hispanics, and 229 whites for a total of 503. A total of 624 passed and 861 were examined.

Appearing before Beavers' committee were: Dr. Michael Roberts, president, law enforcement for the Psychological Services, based in Los Gatos, CA, Dr. Marva Dawkins, president, director, Center for Applied Psychology and Forensic Studies, Dr. Constance Fullilove, vice president, Center for Applied Psychology and Forensic Studies and Dr. Cecelia E. Dawkins, director, business affairs, Research 7 Development, Center for Applied Psychology and Forensic Studies.

They admitted there is a problem with the exam results and vowed to rectify them.

Beavers wasn't happy. "Hopefully, they'll be able to solve it or find somebody to solve the problem. I see a problem with interviews. When you get interviewed once and you're turned down, and the next time you go for an interview you get the same interviewer, you're already defeated from the time you walk in the door."

Beavers said he's serious about suing the joint venture firm just as he did before "to show that there is some problems with the psychological testing. We'll seek an opportunity for these people to be retested."

He said 2,000 applicants were retested resulting in 20 percent failing whereas before the percentage was much larger. Beavers said there is something wrong with those results.

Saying 10 percent failures is a problem, but to have 13 percent failing is "outrageous, a real problem."

Article Copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.

Photo (William Beavers)