General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My nephew is a 29 year cop said this about Ferguson. [View all]Cal33
(7,018 posts)forum, I think, that police departments no longer hire as police officers applicants with
IQs better than 102 to 104. (An IQ of 100 is right in the middle, the 50 percent mark).
The reason is that those with higher IQs tend to get bored as police officers, and their
rate of leaving the service was high. It takes quite some money to train a policeman
to begin with, so it becomes too expensive eventually to employ more intelligent people
who tend not to stay in the force long.
Police officers do come across situations requiring good judgment, and they do come
across situations involving life and death depending on their judgment. The more
intelligent officers tend to have better judgment. But if police departments don't hire
people with more than average intelligence....... Could this be a reason for the large
numbers of unnecessary deaths at the hands of police officers nationwide?
How about doing the opposite -- hiring only people with IQs of 110 and higher as police
officers? They could be made to pledge to stay with the police force for a minimum of,
say, 8 years, and they'll have a good chance of promotion if they did a good job? It will
take quite some time for the numbers of unnecessary deaths to drop, of course. But this
still would be worthwhile, and will be worth the expense.