Finding the Truth

An Austin, Texas employment agency has developed a controversial solution to the growing problem of white collar crime (see above). The firm, Employment Advisors, Inc., gives a $15 lie-detector test to job applicants, certifies those who pass as "honest." The agency also tests employees of a business where pilfering is suspected. Since it opened six months ago, Employment Advisors has tested 1,498 employees (two refused and they lost their jobs) of more than 600 firms in Texas. The results, claims Employment Advisors' Partner Thomas J. Devine, 25, a University of Texas law graduate, are a drastic drop in pilfering and a noticeable improvement in employee morale.

Devine gives his tests to people he recommends for jobs as well as to job applicants sent to him by companies. He tells each person how the lie detector (polygraph) works and that they can leave at any time during the questioning. Then he asks such questions as "Have you ever taken as much as $10 from a store?", "Have you ever stolen from your employer?" or, wary of the absentee problem among females applying for jobs, "Are you pregnant?" Devine and his partner Clayton Evans, 25, also give each other monthly lie detector tests.

Not only does the lie-detector test benefit the boss, but it is also a boon to the employee, says Devine. When a frozen-food distributor called in Devine to find out who was pilfering $1,000 worth of food each month, the losses stopped immediately. Result: management gave raises, boosted starting pay $10 a week. In another case when $42 in cash disappeared from a service station, the three attendants voluntarily asked Devine for a lie-detector test. Devine said they were honest, sent them back to the job. A few days later a customer returned the money, saying he had mistaken the manager's bank bag for his own.

Devine says he is aware of the problems of violations of privacy and the insulting connotation of the tests. But he insists that the machines' quizzes are more accurate than interviewing with trick questions or employing company spies. A lie-detector test, he says, is not too much to ask of a prospective employee, and Devine sees the day when they will be as accepted and as widely used as physical examinations.

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