Chicago’s police department and Cook County sheriff’s office are launching new efforts to weed out bad apples, says the Chicago Sun-Times. Sheriff Tom Dart ordered his internal-affairs investigators to conduct background checks on every one of the office’s 7,000 employees. The Chicago Police Department is sending four officers and a sergeant through training to operate polygraph machines. Anyone applying to be an officer will have to take a lie-detector test, said Ted O’Keefe, head of the department’s personnel division.
The sheriff’s office already requires people applying for sworn positions to take a polygraph test. Sworn positions include correctional officers, court deputies and police officers. Applicants are asked about drug sales, theft, time-sheet fraud, vandalism, gang affiliations and arrests. Last year, 295 applicants took polygraph tests.