Drug use/law enforcement

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tdow

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I am currently working on my bachelors degree in criminal justice. I hope to work in state or federal law enforcement.

I was just looking at the website for the Washington State Patrol, and they have rather strict policies concerning prior drug use rendering one ineligible for employment. Several of their criteria disqualified me, as I did quite a bit of "experimentation" when I was younger and extremely stupid.

It's not something I could just lie my way out of. I just want to know ahead of time if there are places that I just shouldn't look for work.

How strict are other agencies, such as the FBI or DEA (I'm not joking), or BATF (I am joking :D ) or municipal police agencies (in general). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

--tdow
 
Many local police agencies will automatically disqualify you if you have a documented drug offense. I was "busted" back in '99 my last semester in college before graduating(I was writen a ticket, went to court, plead guilty, paid a huge fine/court fees/probation fees, and was put on probation for a year) for a misdomeanor possetion of marijana charge. After considering a career in law enforcement, I found out about such disqualifications after long and hard looking. Many federal agencies won't automatically disqualify you for such offenses, but the FBI is out if I'm not mistaken. You can find out on each agencies websites when you look through their recruitment pages.

Now comes the tricky part. If you have never had a problem legally, then you enter a nice grey area. Most of these agencies (local, state, or federal) give you a thorough background check, and then give you a polygraph test where they will ask you questions about prior drug use. Some claim that if you haven't done x drugs in x amount of time, then you are ok.

The best advice I can give you is to talk to someone where you want to work and get to know them. You can use them as a reference, which is good. But just be honest about any drug use up front. Chance are they will ask you at the begining when you are filling out paper work, and you don't want to lie about it then, and have it come up during a background check or while being administered a polygraph test.

And I'm really :cuss: because I have pretty much screwed up being able to do something that I would like to, to better serve my community.

I hope no one thinks I'm a druggy with a gun, because that was the last time I dabbled in drugs.
 
My coworker is in the academy at 38 and did some stupid stuff when he was younger and they overlooked it.

If you do the 'harder' substances it weighs more against you, but I think for one LE agency I applied for, it said 'Marijuana within the last 3 years' or something.

Many agencies are willing to forgive and realize people did stupid things, they just don't want you to become their problem if you still have 'demons'.
 
I never dealt anything, and I was never arrested for any drug-related offense. So I guess I fall into that "grey" area.

I'm most interested in the FBI at this point. I've been to their website, but their standards were rather vague.

Hopefully I can make up for it with hard work and careful planning.

Thanks for the responses so far.

--tdow
 
Or, ....

Take their lie-detector quiz - lie BTW - & then sue them later as LD isn't admissible in court, so "logical" extension is that it shouldn't be allowable for disqualification.

Hire the meanest big dog, nasty lawyer & you won't ever have to work at all. ;)

(only 1/2 joking)
 
My advice is contact each agency you are interested in and find out their policies regarding the drug and past criminal history issues.
It varies from state to state, some depts are stricter than others and I have no idea what the feds require.

Honestly, if I wasn't over half way to my 20 year pension, I would find another job.
Le is really starting to suck, fewer and fewer people are applying, even with the dismal economy. The liabilities are becoming greater and the support of the govt and public is fading.
I am in one of my moods, but I can't in good spirit recommend Le as a job.

Good luck with whatever you do. :D
 
Unfortunately I agree with Delta. I have been in law enforcement for 13 years and it has gotten really bad the last few years. The worst thing I see is the higher ups could give a rats behind if we are doing a good job. All they care about is liability and that they look good for the next promotion. Also I find it scary that we can no longer attract a large pool of qualified applicants. People have no idea how bad it is getting.
 
I had a friend who applied for the LA County Sherriff's, Temple City. They gave him a polygraph as part of the hiring process. He admitted to smoking dope several years before. He was never busted and hadn't done any for a long time. He was disqualified for it.

It think that agency is made up of Nazi's anyway. They give law enforcement a bad name. I don't know if other agencies are that un-forgiving. Hopefully not.
 
Its sad to hear that Delta and mrat. I wish that I had friendly nice police to count on here, but the pool of applicants that I see every year going through the academy is sometimes scary. There is also a retention problem here because people are going through the academy and then getting jobs eslewhere as soon as possible. They are now making all recruits sign a one year contract to serve on the city's force. What ever happend to Andy Griffin type officers? (And I mean that in the best possible light :D )
 
NO is the worst of the worst.

Lucky you don't have any more folks with felony rap sheets getting into the police academy there. Some years back, a majority of recruits had convictions.

When was the last murder committed by an NO police "officer"?

I remember the guy who went around ripping off drug dealers and killing them, along with a few citizens who filed complaints against him. Or Annette Franks, who killed several family members of a Chinese restaurant where she worked security sometimes in a hold-up.

Coincidentally, NO was supposed to be the worst paid force in the country, for any major city.
 
CZ-75...
It's been a few years since anything like that has happened. And the woman who killed the people in the Chineese restaurant also shot her partner IIRC. It was really bad about 6 years ago. It is not as bad now, but it could be a lot better. And the force here is pretty poorly paid.
 
Thanks for the positive input folks. :D

I still love what I do, even though it is getting harder and harder to do it.

Sadly most of the good applicants aren't applying or as I saw in my last squad are leaving, because they are so disgusted with modern Le. Since they are new and haven't wasted much of their life in Le, they can go on to bigger and better things.

In 1990 I tested with over 3000 other applicants to be one of 30 hired that year.
Our last testing in November of 2002, we had under 300 applicants, most of whom were repeat applicants, from which they wanted to hire 50, but only 23 met even the minimum qualifications to be allowed into the academy.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :(

Anyways, good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Remember, life is what happens to you while you are busy making plans. ;)
 
If the FBI requires any DoD clearances, then I believe it would disqualify you. I work in aerospace and drug use, of any kind, will cause you to lose your clearance. I assume any use before being cleared will cause you to be denied.

I think the main thing is you cannot lie. If drug use does not disqualify you, lying will. Just put it out on the table.
 
I worked with Antoinette Frank in N.O, as well as the officer she killed. The problem wasn't a rap sheet, it was flunking the psych test repeatedly but having enough connections to get the job. The problem with the other miscreants was simply low pay coupled with a lot of street corner drug dealing and lots of cash transactions, and the opportunity for someone with loose standards to step onto the wrong side. CZ-75, you are incorrect that they took people with felony convictions.

As to the question at issue, tdow, you just need to ask around and see what the objective requirements are. They vary from agency to agency. I recommend doing your homework, and being honest. Don't apply anyplace where you don't meet the objective requirements. If you're not going to be honest to get the job, are you going to be honest when you get it?
 
I am not in police work but I have looked into it in the past and it may be my fallback if I don't get into a halfway decent graduate school. I also have dabbled with pot in my youth (nothing major and we're talking about the last times being a decade or so ago) so I have done some research into it.

I also was very interested in either the FBI or Secret Service (when not protecting political officials the Secret Service protects our money supply and the integrity of the banking system and having spend 5 years in banking I found them interesting).

In reality I doubt you'd have much chance if you've tried anything harder than pot or did pot more than a half dozen times. Officially, you can forget the FBI if you smoked pot more than a dozen or so times or tried anything harder more than a couple times (here is the section on their drug policy from an online PDF file of their booklet on their selection process):

CRITERIA
A.An applicant who has used any illegal drug while employed in any law enforcement or prosecutorial position,or while employed in a position which carries with it a high level of responsibility or public trust,will be found unsuitable for employment.
B.An applicant who is discovered to have misrepresented his/her drug history in completing the application will be found unsuitable for employment.
C.An applicant who has sold any illegal drug for profit at any time will be found unsuitable for employment.
D.An applicant who has used any illegal drug (including anabolic steroids after February 27, 1991),other than marijuana,within the last ten years or more than five times in one ’s life will be found unsuitable for employment.
E.An applicant who has used marijuana within the past three years or more than a total of 15 times in one ’s life will be found unsuitable for employment.

To determine whether you meet the FBI ’s drug policy,please answer the following
questions:
1)Have you used marijuana at all within the last three years?
2)Have you used marijuana more than a total of 15 times in your life?
3)Have you used any other illegal drug (including anabolic steroids after February 27,1991)at all in the past 10 years?
4)Have you used any other illegal drug (including anabolic steroids after February 27,1991) more than a total of five times in your life?
5)Have you ever sold any illegal drug for profit?
6)Have you ever used an illegal drug (no matter how many times or how long ago)while in a law enforcement or prosecutorial position,or in a position which carries with it a high level
of responsibility or public trust?
Click to expand...

I've also noticed that locally it varies considerably. State police agencies usually won't consider you if you ever did any illegal drug. Some localities will (most will), some won't. If I was applying now I'd apply to one or two that I most wanted to work for (assuming I didn't violate their published criteria) and I'd also put in an app at a city police force that has more trouble getting qualified applicants (heck, if they're sometimes hiring people with criminal records, smoking pot a few times some time ago and never being caught shouldn't be a problem). Then if I wasn't hired where I really wanted to be I'd get some experience in the urban department and try to reapply where I wanted to be after I had some experience later on.
 
A young man of my acquaintance applied for a position with the Secret Service. The guy is so squeaky clean, personable and hard-working I'd adopt him if I could. He was rejected after he claimed never to have used any drugs at all in his 28-year life. They found that implausible.
I believe all Federal agencies have pretty much the same standards, which Chaim addressed above.

TC
TFL Survivor
 
So far I've heard a few different things. I've seen just about everything on the website, and have read a little bit from other sources.

I think that I will put everything I've got into it, and if my past screws me up, then that's the way it goes. I've got some time before this will happen to get myself more squared away than even the squeakiest of the clean. Hopefully, there is a human element that will recognize this. If it doesn't work out, I can still try somewhere else.

--tdow
 
I think the main thing is you cannot lie. If drug use does not disqualify you, lying will. Just put it out on the table.
Click to expand...

Solid advice there. A few years back I applied for a Reserve Deputy slot with my local Sheriff's Office. I've never been in full-time, paid LE, but supposedly the Reserve candidates were put through the same pre-screening and qualification process as "regular" deputy applicants.

I didn't have any drug-use issues but there were other issues in my past I wasn't thrilled to have to disclose. There was no point in trying to hide it because I knew these things would crop up somehow, directly or indirectly. I was very up-front with them and covered it all both in writing and in the oral interviews as well as prior to and during the polygraph examination. When it was all done, I got the position.

He was rejected after he claimed never to have used any drugs at all in his 28-year life. They found that implausible.
Click to expand...

That was the ONE question on the polygraph were the deputy administering the test said I "wobbled" some. I'm another who has never used drugs ever, at all. Almost everybody I know says they've used some illegal drugs at some point in their lives and I knew that was something LE applicants (or anyone else) might try to conceal...the deputies really harped on that during the application process. I guess I just about freaked myself out over it during the exam! :)
 
labgrade,

Even if I didn't have to take the polygraph, they would still have ways of potentially finding things out. I wouldn't expect anyone that I have known to lie for me.

--tdow
 
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