Dr. Stone is a broad-service forensic psychologist who is unusually equipped to provide professional services for law enforcement organizations at the local, state, and national levels. His goal is to provide the highest level of professional psychological services to meet the recruitment, training, management, and operational needs of law enforcement agencies. Dr. Stone is the only forensic psychologist in West Virginia whose practice for the past 20+ years has been exclusively devoted to forensic psychology subject matters. He was the first psychologist in West Virginia to earn his Diplomate in Forensic Psychology from the American Board of Forensic Psychology and the American Board of Professional Psychology [even at the present time there are only two psychologists in this State who are so credentialed]. Additionally, he has been honored by being named as a Fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Psychology.

     Dr.Stone has recently held academic rank as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry, in West Virginia University's (WVU) School of Medicine; he also has presented continuing legal education sessions for attorneys, sponsored jointly by the West Virginia State Bar Association and by WVU's School of Law. Dr. Stone recently retired from an almost 23-year-long agency's most senior, highest-grade psychologist. For 14 years he was a supervising psychologist involved in mental health and character evaluations of applicants for employment, of employees and their families for new and special assignments, and of employees of contractors regarding the granting of high-level security clearances. For his last eight years in that employment, he was the Chief Psychologist in charge of all human resources assessment testing.

     Expert, cost-effective, psychological assessment services are now available within West Virginia to help curtail long-range expenses for police organizations. Rapidly escalating costs of lawsuits, dropouts, disability pensions, and other low cost/benefit occurrences, require preventive psychological services to reverse this growing trend. Over a decade ago (i.e., in 1986), cost analysis research on the effectiveness of pre employment screening suggested that it costs a major city almost a half million dollars for each employment error in hiring an unsuitable police officer. With today's dollars, this loss of hard-to-come-by funds would be expected to be even higher.

SERVICES

     Dr. Stone is equipped to provide the following services to qualified law enforcement agencies:

RECRUIT PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING

     Accreditation Standards of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) now require that all law enforcement agencies that expect to be accredited will use a psychological screening battery for the selection of recruits for training, or for the selection of officers for placement. Dr. Stone is equipped to use a variety of psychological screening batteries that can be utilized for these purposes, depending on the requirements of the department. These selection batteries can be administered in the involved police agency or in Dr. Stone's office facilities.

     In the past couple of decades, the executive, judicial and legislative branches of the federal government have given much attention to establishing and clarifying the rights available to members of "protected classes" insofar as competing for employment positions in both the public and the private work sectors. Discrimination in employment, promotion, discipline, and compensation are forbidden. Discrimination is particularly defined in terms of gender, race, national origin, age, and more recently physical disability. In some ways, the complexity of the most current (i.e., 1991) Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) creates ambiguities in interpretation and application, particularly in the area of police selection. Any kind of psychological screening or evaluation regarding police personnel selection matters must be consistent with all these federal legal requirements as challenging litigation against police agencies has become increasingly likely. Dr. Stone's awareness and understanding of these matters as they affect psychological assessment is maintained in a most current fashion.

     Experience has shown that most psychologists, who are mainly involved in general clinical psychology practices and who only very infrequently are requested to become involved in psychological assessment of police recruit applicants, are not sufficiently aware of the federal legal constraints that now impact upon psychological assessment associated with pre employment selection. If a police department is or has been obtaining psychological assessment assistance from a psychologist(s) who is ignorant of the very extensive and complicated current federal legal constraints that almost entirely define the parameters of psychological assessment in the employment process, that department is indeed facing eminent legal danger. Dr. Stone would be happy to describe his knowledge and experience background regarding the matter of federal discrimination-focused law as it affects psychological assessment. Psychological assessment with employee selection is not a matter to delegate to mental health professionals who are not fully proficient in this rather special psychological evaluation field.

FITNESS-FOR-DUTY-EVALUATIONS

     When an officer has been involved in a critical incident situation, the question of the officer's fitness to return to duty is often an issue that faces police managers. Dr. Stone is prepared to offer psychological evaluation for such officers, with recommendations for both treatment and/or return to duty. He has had well over a couple decades of experience performing psychologically-focused fitness for duty evaluations.

     In special instances, some officers may have received a medical disability or partial disability pension as a result of job-related occurrences or job-related stress. Periodic reevaluations may be necessary to determine whether such pension recipients are in continuing need of support or whether they may return to full or partial duty. As has been noted, Dr. Stone is equipped to perform psychological evaluations in such situations as he had extensive high-level experience with such matters during the past couple of decades.

SPECIAL TEAM EVALUATION

     Psychological evaluation is available to ensure that members of special teams (SWAT, Narcotics, Undercover, Internal Affairs, and so forth) are psychologically fit to tolerate stressful jobs that will be expected of them. CALEA Accreditation standards do recommend that members of such teams be screened psychologically each year to ensure that they have not developed pathological psychological traits that would interfere with their effective functioning. Dr. Stone can provide this type of screening; he has had almost two decades of experience in performing such focused psychological evaluations for special duties and environments.

TRAINING

     Modern law enforcement agencies are aware that training is a cost-beneficial preventive measure. Dr. Stone possesses a variety of training materials and live presentation preparations that are available to law enforcement agencies. Some subjects include:

       *Dealing with the Mentally-Disordered Offender

       *Preparing to Be an Expert Witness at Court

       *Using Psychological Services in Criminal
        Investigation

       *(Other training subject courses can be developed
        upon demand)

RESEARCH

     Dr. Stone is well-prepared to conduct research studies that may be required of a qualified law enforcement agency. During litigation against an agency regarding selection methods, the availability of local norms for both recruit selection and fitness-for-duty evaluations is often an issue. Dr. Stone can prepare local norming projects for departments that desire such research. Research studies on a large variety of these kinds of subject concerns has been accomplished by Dr. Stone during the past large number of years. Publication reprints and/or research report copies are available describing some of this work. Recently, Dr. Stone was the leader of a group of industrial/organizational psychologists who were responsible for the rebuilding and validation of a large battery of aptitude and knowledge proficiency tests for use within this Country's largest intelligence agency. This particular project involved millions of dollars and required several years to complete.

MANAGEMENT CONSULTATION

     Police management is one of the most difficult administrative tasks in any organization today. Modern police managers know the value of morale surveys, effective training and selection methods, objective personnel procedures, and promotional policies. Dr. Stone is experienced in consultation with top managers and is available on an incident or contractual basis. 

INVESTIGATIVE CONSULTATION

     Modern criminal investigation utilizes a broad range of psychological techniques which include:

       *Psychological Profiling.

       *Psychological Autopsy. [He appeared on the "CBS
        Evening News" in 1993 and described such a
       conducted autopsy.

       *Interrogation Strategy based on Psychological
        Principles.

     The experienced forensic psychologist working with a police investigator can provide information that may be useful in analyzing crime data or working with difficult or unproductive witnesses. Dr. Stone has been involved in psychological assessment of criminal offenders and of those accused of such offenses for the past almost 40 years. It would be difficult to find a psychologist more experienced than is Dr. Stone with respect to his knowledge of the sometimes-called "criminal mind."

INITIAL CONSULTATION

     If a department believes that it may have some need for the services offered by Dr. Stone, initial contact can be made telephonically. Contact should be made by the chief executive officer (chief or sheriff) or by the CEO's immediate assistant (deputy chief, under sheriff, first deputy, assistant chief). 

To discuss your requirements or ask specific information, call:

Dr. LeRoy A. Stone (304) 535-2332

E-mail: lastone2@earthlink.net
 
 

           Dr. Stone is well-equipped and has had over two decades
               of high-level employment experience in evaluating individuals
                for 'positions of trust.'  He possesses an excellent working
                 knowledge of he many 'pitfalls' associated with the 1984 Civil
                  Rights law as well as with the 1994 Americans for Disability
                   Act laws/requirements.