Military should overhaul screening process: experts
Posted Oct 20, 2010 08:05:18 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A retired military officer says the screening process for the Canadian Forces needs to change.
The revelation of Col. Russell Williams’ misdeeds has some asking how someone so disturbed could have risen so high within the ranks of the military without setting off any red flags.
As it stands, military personnel face mandatory psychological testing only when they are first recruited and when they come home from combat.
Military analyst Mercedes Stephenson tells us some people can easily fool the tests.
“When it asks questions like, ‘Do you feel like hurting small animals,’ well, some of the psychopaths may well, but if they’re an intelligent psychopath, they’ll know to answer no,” she said.
Ret. Col. Michel Drapeau is critical of the process, telling the Ottawa Sun it hasn’t changed in 50 years and the military should begin regular psychological evaluation using lie detectors like the RCMP and CSIS.
Stephenson says she believes action will be taken.
“Following this, clearly the military’s going to be reviewing it’s rules and regulations,” she said. “Somebody like Russ Williams is exceptionally evil and we have to be on guard for that not happening again.”
Drapeau says the armed forces set up an independent selection committee that would handle the process for promoting officers.
