Police Physical Ability Tests: A Comparison of Incumbent Police

Health
Authors
Affiliations

Sarah Lanham

AMES Research Center, Kennesaw State University

Thomas J. Hodges

AMES Research Center, Kennesaw State University

Charles Bowen

Department of Criminal Justice, University of North Georgia

Tom R. Nagel

Training Division, Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department

Brian A. Moore

AMES Research Center, Kennesaw State University

While policing is physically demanding work, many police officers are in poor physical condition, owing to occupational and cultural factors. Recently, many states have mandated physical ability testing for new police officers. Yet few of these programs have been evaluated. In this project, I conducted a Bayesian data analysis of two groups: police who took and passed Georgia’s physical ability test, and a group who has not. The complete analysis code is available on my GitHub.

For more on Bayesian data analysis, read this post.

Citation

Lanham, S., Bowen, C., Hodges, T.J., Nagel, T.R., Moore, B.A. Police Physical Ability Tests: A Comparison of Incumbent Police. Target Journal: Police Quarterly.