When the Police Cheat

In August 2022, the New York Police Department (NYPD) gave its sergeants an exam for the first time since 2017. Some 10,399 officers took the exam, which was four and a half hours long. Test takers had the choice of four sessions held over two days.

However, almost immediately, allegations of cheating began to circulate. Approximately 80 officers filed cheating allegations after the test, saying that it was identical on both days. They further alleged that officers who took the test on the first day had shared questions and answers with officers who took it later.

The New York Post obtained screenshots of text chats between officers. These screenshots included questions, answers and general guidance about what was on the test. Ultimately, some 1,730 officers passed the test for a pass rate of around 17%.

On Monday, the City of New York Department of Investigation released its report on the cheating allegations. The report, to put it mildly, is damming.

It paints a picture of a test proctor who did almost everything wrong, including allowing ineligible officers to take the test, not enforcing stated rules and failing to harden the test against cheating.

Though the report claims that the cheating was ineffective, it doesn’t back that claim up with strong evidence. Furthermore, the punishments handed down were weak and only given to a small minority who participated.

It’s a bad look for a civil institution that already faces challenges with public trust.

What the Report Says

As Derek Newton noted at The Cheat Sheet, the report painted the test in a very negative light.

First, the report claimed that 35 questions were compromised. However, their definition of a “compromised” question was simply that both the question and the answer had been provided via social media or text messages. This means the question was not seen as compromised if it was provided without an answer or if just the topic was provided.

Second, those “compromised” questions were shared with roughly 1,200 candidates, approximately 12% of all test takers. Those compromised questions make up 35% of the 100-question test.

This might not have been a huge issue, but 95 of the 100 questions were the same from day one to day two. Even worse, the test only requires 70 correct answers to pass, putting officers halfway to passing via cheating alone.

However, the most egregious story involves a retired NYPD captain who runs a promotion test school for officers taking the test. He sat for the 2022 test even though he was already a captain and had retired in 2013. According to the report, he had taken the test eighteen times since 2002 despite being ineligible each time.

The report also highlights other issues. These include the improper use of cell phones, including before and during the exam, and other ineligible officers taking the exam.

It’s a significant mess, but the report tells us it’s not a major problem, as the test did not significantly alter the pass/fail rates. However, their analysis of that is a bit flawed.

A Flawed Analysis, A Worse Response

According to the report, cheating did not significantly affect whether officers passed or failed the exam. They back this up by showing that the first session had the highest pass rate, 28.2%. The sessions on the second day had pass rates of just 4% and 12.5%, respectively.

However, as Newton notes, logic has a significant problem. Since the officers could choose their sessions, the more confident and prepared ones likely chose earlier sessions to complete the task quickly.

Besides, the issue isn’t whether more or fewer officers passed. It’s whether any officers passed unfairly. Though Newton suggested some ways to rescore the test and address the question, no effort was made to do so.

To make matters worse, though some 1,200 test takers received the compromised questions, only seven were disciplined. They were the ones who shared the questions directly, and their punishment was simply a loss of between three and thirty vacation days.

In short, there was no actual risk of cheating on the test. No one who passed has lost their rank, those who enabled the cheating received slaps on the wrist.

The only good news from the report is that the city seems to have tightened the standards at least some. During the March 2023 test, the Department of Investigation screened some 2,712 applications and found 103 ineligible to take the test. That appears to include the aforementioned retired captain.

While that might be good news for future tests, it doesn’t help restore confidence in the results of previous ones.

Bottom Line

The city did just about everything possible wrong when administering this test: It did not enforce cell phone rules, it allowed ineligible people to sit for it, it did not change the questions between sessions/days, and it did not adequately follow up on allegations of cheating.

While they seem to be making some improvements for future exams, that does nothing to address the integrity issues in this exam.

It would be easy to blame this on a government institution inexperienced with giving tests. However, the city hired two private companies, Morris and McDaniel Inc. and PSI Services LLC, to administer the test.

Those companies claim to be experts in this area. PSI lists “test security” as one of their areas of expertise. However, this test was insecure in just about every way that it can be insecure. They made nearly every mistake possible.

While I understand the desire to trust the honesty of police officers, this case shows that cheating is everywhere. Anywhere there is a test where something is on the line, you can rest assured that someone will try to cheat, especially if enough people take it.

In the end, a few basic steps could have prevented most of the cheating. That would have reduced or eliminated many of the questions or concerns surrounding this test. Instead, a cloud now hangs over this exam, which is grossly unfair to the officers who took it and passed fairly.

They deserve to have their accomplishments awarded and acknowledged, not besmirched by a cloud of cheating.

However, that’s the reality that both they and the public at large have to live with.