Selecting witness protection officers: developing a test battery for Australian police

Abstract

The aim of the study was to develop a measure identifying specific skill sets of effective witness protection (WP) officers. Two representative groups produced a job analysis for WP officers from which we generated a pool of items forming a Behavioural Observation Scale (BOS). Supervisors of 50 Australian WP officers (40 men) completed the BOS. Exploratory factor analysis produced a 38-item BOS resolving into three factors, Policing skills, Partition skills and Interpersonal skills, explaining > 69% of the variance with excellent internal consistency of > .90. The BOS represents a reliable and valid tool for selecting WP officers.

Keywords:

• policing
• witness protection
• selection process
• scale development

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the managers of witness protection in the various states, a number of whom went out of their way to obtain valuable information and documentation. Thank you also for your interest in the project and for allowing members the opportunity to participate.

Notes

1. A plain language explanation of factor analysis statistical procedures is in Appendix A.