Criminal Justice Recent Scholarship Edited by Marilyn McShane and Frank P. Williams III A Series from LFB Scholarly This page intentionally left blank Drug Testing in Law Enforcement Agencies Social Control in the Public Sector James R. Brunet LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC New York 2005 Copyright © 2005 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brunet, James R., 1966- Drug testing in law enforcement agencies : social control in the public sector / James R. Brunet. p. cm. -- (Criminal justice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59332-067-1 (alk. paper) 1. Police--Drug testing--United States. I. Title. II. Series: Criminal justice (LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC) HV7936.D78B78 2005 363.2'2--dc22 2004019386 ISBN 1-59332-067-1 Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper. Manufactured in the United States of America. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………... 1 A Drug Testing Primer………………………………………………… 3 The Evolution of Public Sector Drug Testing…………………………. 9 Purpose of Research………………………………………………….. 21 Chapter 2: Competing Views of Workplace Drug Testing………. 25 The Supporters of Drug Testing……………………………………… 25 The Critics of Drug Testing………………………………………...... 32 Chapter 3: A Public Sector Theory of Drug Testing..……………. 47 Core Elements of Social Control Theory…………………………….. 49 Employee Drug Testing as Social Control…………………………… 52 Alternative Theoretical Perspectives………………………………….66 Chapter 4: Drug Use & Testing in Law Enforcement Agencies…. 73 Scope of the Problem – Drug Use in the Ranks……………………… 74 The Etiology of Police Drug Use…………………………………….. 78 The Drug Testing Solution…………………………………………… 80 Political and Legal Contours………………………………..………... 84 Chapter 5: Methodology……………………………………………. 89 Data Source…………………………………………………………... 89 Measurement of Variables………………………………………….... 91 Hypotheses…………………………………………………………… 98 Statistical Analysis……………………………………………….…. 104 Reliability and Validity Issues…………………………………….... 104 Delimitations………………………………………………………... 106 Chapter 6: Findings……………………………………………….. 109 Univariate Analyses……………………………………………….... 109 Bivariate Analyses………………………………………………….. 122 Multivariate Analyses…………………………………………...….. 133 v vi Table of Contents Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusions………………………….. 153 Theory Building………………………………………………...…... 153 Theory Testing………………………………………………...……. 155 Policy, Administrative, and Research Implications …………………165 References .………………………………………………………….169 Index ………………………………………………………………...187 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has benefited greatly from the intellectual prompting of colleagues and students at North Carolina State University. In particular, I would like to thank William R. Smith, Patricia L. McCall, and Catherine Zimmer for their theoretical and methodological guidance early on in the process. Dennis M. Daley ensured the book’s relevance to the public personnel administration literature. Deborah Lamm Weisel offered learned insights about police management and practice. I must especially thank Michael L. Vasu for keeping the author on task and on time. Lastly, I owe a debt of gratitude to my students in the Administrative Officers Management Program (AOMP) for providing a much-needed police practitioner perspective on the subject matter. JRB vii This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 Introduction Drug testing has moved into the mainstream of American life. The situations that trigger drug screens, as well as the justifications offered to defend their use, are varied and numerous. To protect the safety of the traveling public, commercial airline pilots and truck drivers are screened for substances that impair mental acuity and dull reflexes. Professional and amateur athletes are tested for performance enhancing drugs to ensure fair play and the integrity of results. High school students participating in extracurricular activities, persons under correctional supervision and those watching them, nuclear plant workers, life insurance applicants, military personnel, welfare recipients, police officers, college-loan recipients, and job seekers at most Fortune 500 companies routinely submit to drug tests. This is not meant to imply that drug testing has been adopted at every mere suggestion of its use. Calls for testing child-toting soccer moms and persons running for elected office have been met with disinterest or unsympathetic judicial rulings. Nevertheless, drug testing has become an increasingly important part of our social lives, especially in the workplace. Workplace drug testing is a commonplace practice in many public and private sector organizations in the United States. The apparent ubiquity of drug testing, however, belies its rapid emergence over the last two decades. From the time of its introduction during the Vietnam- era until the mid-1980s, drug testing was largely limited to armed services personnel (Mulloy 1991). Large-scale drug testing of federal workers only began with President Reagan’s 1986 call for a “drug-free 1