Law Enforcement Promotions

For over 3 decades, the staff of PCI have offered a full range of promotional testing and consulting services to law enforcement. These include:

• Performance evaluation systems
• Rules and procedures review
• Validation studies
• Federal & state guidelines compliance
• Custom test construction
• National law enforcement accreditation assistance

PCI offers full service promotional examination and interview techniques.

Our research strength has resulted in the award of government grants to study special law enforcement problems. PCI's technical excellence is combined with the practical experience gained by working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies in 29 states. Our position as advisors to both state and national organizations, as well as prominent law firms, keeps the real needs of our clients in focus. Our broad courtroom experience helps prevent the needless exposure of our clients to preventable legal action.

Accurate Promotional Procedures

The success of your promotional process demands more than just a good written test. The proper approach begins with up to date rules and procedures that are fair and legally defensible. Acceptance by your employees is ensured by realistic ratings systems and objective interview procedures that are technically accurate and help assure your credibility.

The PCI team is equipped to deal with your agency's specific needs to assure that your promotional system is properly balanced. Each component in the process should complement the total promotional procedure. Specific issues such as passing points and weights assigned to the various components can present problems if not properly engineered. Analysis of your department's promotional program is part of our regular service.

PCI clients have come to expect this level of service as a consulting standard.

Written Examinations

PCI can construct and validate your own test "from scratch" or you can rely on our prevalidated job knowledge multiple choice modules. Each module is based upon a separate recognized and recent text which is quickly available from book publishers.

PCI examinations are pre-tested in the field. They are regularly updated to ensure fairness and acceptance by your candidates. PCI's general job-knowledge tests are designed for the widest possible application to law enforcement organizations nationwide. Most examinations contain between 100 and 200 items that require form 2 to 3 hours to administer.

Using Our Services

Interested departments and commissions should contact us in sufficient advance to allow for rules and procedures changes. Your job descriptions and organizational charts will be requested to assure that the proper test is selected for your department. Consultation with command level sworn personnel allows a study list to be generated based upon the modules related to your department practices.

Most departments prefer to have the written examination administered by one of the PCI agents from your area. This is done in order to maintain the highest level of test security.

PCI's test questions will not be found in book stores or popular test study guides. To avoid compromising security, the examinations are not normally pre-reviewed by user agencies. References and study lists assure that you are receiving a proper test that applies to your organization. On-site pre-inspections of the examination can be arranged for special circumstances.

If it is normal practice for candidates to review their results, the breakdown of the total examination into subject area scores for each candidate will be especially useful.

PCI promotional examinations are scored and evaluated by our in-house computer and optical scanning system for accuracy and speed. Normally, you will have test results in 72 hours. You will also receive a series of reports of each candidate's performance and a statistical report on the overall performance of the total group.

Custom Services

Most agencies will opt to maximize accuracy and increase the fairness and legal defensibility of their written promotional process. This is especially desirable when full scientific validation is not practical. the following procedures are highly recommended when any controversy is possible. These Procedures require advance notice to employees participation in your promotional process.

Expert Panel Review: A PCI consultant superintends an on-site panel comprised of your own staff ranking officers. Guided by recognized scientific procedures, each item is evaluated against local practices. Specific questions are removed from the test that are judged inappropriate. This is normally performed at the time the candidates are being tested to assure security. The expert panel review results in the defensible elimination of improper questions from the test prior to scoring.

After-Test Item Analysis: This objective statistical procedure requires a minimum of 30 candidates. It is a computer based process which is performed after the test is administered, but before scoring. Item analysis can be used in conjunction with an expert panel review or by itself. Recognized mathematical formulas eliminate improper questions and calculate the index of reliability of the test for your organization. These statistics are useful for review procedures and as a defense to challenges of unfairness.