What are the two different models of fitness-for-duty evaluations, and why is one preferred by the International Association for Chiefs of Police?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.A type of psychological assessment of police officers is the fitness-for-duty evaluation. As a result of stress, injuries, a life-threatening incident, a series of problems, or other indicators that an officer may be psychologically impaired, police administrators can order an officer to undergo an evaluation of fitness to continue performing his or her duties.Such evaluations pose difficulties for everyone involved. Administrators must balance the need to protect the public from a potentially impaired officer against the legal right of the officer to privacy and fair employment.Clinicians must navigate a narrow path between a department's need to know the results of such an evaluation and the officer's expectation that the results will be kept confidential. Finally, the officers themselves face a dilemma: They can be honest and reveal problems that could disqualify them from service, or they can distort their responses to protect their jobs and consequently miss the opportunity for potentially beneficial treatment.Two different models of fitness-for-duty evaluations have been used. In the first, a department uses the same psychologist to perform the evaluation and to provide whatever treatment is necessary for the officer. In the other, the psychologist who evaluates the officer does not provide any treatment; this avoids an ethical conflict between keeping the therapy confidential (as part of duty to the patient) and disclosing an officer's psychological functioning to supervisors (as part of duty to the department). The second approach is endorsed in the "Guidelines for Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations" distributed by the Police Psychological Services Section of the International Association for Chiefs of Police.