Expert: Jack Toomey - 3/12/2009

Question
I am a 33 year old male looking to switch careers and go
into law enforcement. I have a Masters in Psychology, I'm
married and have 3 kids. I have worked as a drug treatment
and crisis counselor for 4 years in California. I have a
few items I'm worried about for my background questions and
wanted to get your input. They are:

I have used some drugs. I've smoked pot less than three
times and tried shrooms once. This was over 15 years ago. I
haven't touched anything since then.

I have some tickets in my history. In 18 years of driving,
I have received about 10 tickets. 4 of those were spread
over the past 9 years. None of the tickets were for
reckless driving, maybe half of them were for speeding. the
rest were for things like not making a complete stop at a
stop sign. My driving has improved immensely since I
started having kids.

What is the rule about downloading on the internet. I did a
lot of music downloading about 7 years ago when napster was
big. I downloaded a couple of movies recently (without
really thinking about whether it was illegal or not...but
now that I'm going through this process, I'm wondering
about it). Recently, I went to see a movie with a friend
and we walked into another movie after ours was over. Not
sure why I did it...but it was recent and I don't know how
something like that will be viewed. It's not something I do
a lot of, nor is it something I plan to continue. I wonder
if it's something that could disqualify me.

Thanks for any input.

Answer
Ian,

You have to realize that there are thousands of police departments in this country and every single one has its own hiring standards.  So might be true for Department #A might not be true for Department #B.  
The only thing that I can really do is tell you what might happen if you would apply for MY department (which you won't be doing) because I am pretty familiar who they would reject outright and who they wouldn't.

  Your drug use surely would not help you.  It seems to be more than social use.  Your biggest problem would be your traffic record.  In fact that might be enough to reject you at the applicant stage.  The rest is nonsense.

  Now rememeber.  I said this would apply to MY department, which is elite and can afford to reject only but those who perfect records because of the number of applicants.  It DOES NOT apply to any other police department in this country and do not let what I have said discourage you.