NCJ Number
156910
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 62 Issue: 8 Dated: (August 1995) Pages: 84-90
Date Published
1995
Length
7 pages
Annotation
There are many reasons why police officers need to be physically fit: to be more productive, to be healthier, and to be better able to cope with the stress and demands of their job.
Abstract
The courts have decided a great deal of policy related to the ability of police departments to set physical fitness-related policies. Laws such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991 have confused the issues of fitness and employment discrimination, and led many agencies to eliminate their fitness tests and programs entirely. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has defined three validation strategies for determining the job relatedness of physical fitness and other requirements, i.e., content validity, construct validity, and criterion validity. The Major City Chiefs, members of the National Executive Institute, and the FBI in 1993 determined typical requirements for police officers that fit these standards.