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EYESIGHT STANDARDS:
CORRECTING MYTHS
By
Richard N. Holden, Ph.D.
Chairman
Criminal Justice Department
Central Missouri State University
Warrensburg, Missouri
For decades, law enforcement agencies required applicants
to satisfy certain eyesight requirements before being considered
for employment. Few would challenge the belief that public
safety officers need good eyesight. What many do challenge,
with some success, is the idea that applicants must possess
perfect uncorrected vision. A basic question emerges: Should
police recruits be allowed to compensate for imperfect vision
with corrective lenses? If the answer is "yes," then how much
variation should agencies allow?
Several factors converge to make this a timely issue for
law enforcement managers to consider. With a dwindling pool of
suitable applicants from which to fulfill future personnel
needs, some argue that unnecessary selection requirements
undermine law enforcement's recruiting efforts.
In addition, the recent enactment of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits employment discrimination on
the basis of physical disabilities, if a person is able to
perform the essential functions of the job. Because visual
impairment could constitute a protected disability, agencies
that cannot defend their vision standards leave themselves open
to litigation under this new act.
Finally, advancements in medical science need to be
considered. Present-day optical technology renders obsolete
many of the age-old arguments in favor of vision requirements.
This article explores the issues involved in vision
standards. It goes on to discuss these issues as they relate to
the experiences and sentiments expressed in a recent survey of
law enforcement officers concerning eyesight requirements.
SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS
The necessity for good vision in law enforcement--corrected
or otherwise--rests in the visual nature of police work. Law
enforcement officers spend a good portion of their working hours
observing people and events and then reporting what they see.
Additionally, officers must respond quickly to events taking
place around them. They must interpret and react to the actions
of others.
One basic tenant of vision standards is that a significant
impairment translates into an equally impaired ability to
interpret events and react appropriately. Moreover, evidence of
poor vision might make officers vulnerable in court. If an
officer's vision becomes open to judgment, so too may the
evidence offered based on the officer's observations.
The argument for strict uncorrected vision standards rests
on the belief that an officer may have lenses forcibly removed.
Should this occur, the argument is that the officer would be
unable to function adequately. That is to say, the officer
would not be able to fire a weapon accurately, discern if a
suspect was armed, or operate a police vehicle. This would
place the officer in a physically dangerous situation that could
possibly jeopardize others.
Although these arguments constitute the underpinning for
vision requirements, police administrators are clearly not in
agreement over the necessity for uncorrected vision standards.
A 1984 study found that while a majority of the 323 police
agencies surveyed required some minimum uncorrected standard, 26
percent of the responding departments required only that vision
be correctable to 20/20. Another 22 percent allowed uncorrected
vision of 20/100. (1)
Further, differing vision standards exist in otherwise
similar agencies. Some large police departments, including New
York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas, apply restrictive standards.
Other large departments--such as Chicago, Detroit, Newark, and
Tulsa--have no uncorrected vision standards.
The academic community also fails to reach a consensus on
the subject. Some argue for a strict standard. (2) Others,
however, question strict uncorrected vision requirements,
especially in light of evolving vision technology, such as
shatterproof plastic and soft contact lenses. (3)
And, even before passage of the ADA, the controversy over
uncorrected vision standards attracted the attention of the
courts. Although some courts upheld individual agency vision
requirements in the past, this congruence may be coming to an
end. In 1985, a Wisconsin court ruled that an uncorrected
vision standard violated a State law prohibiting discrimination
against the handicapped. (4)
In addition to these issues, several other factors fuel the
argument over vision requirements. Few law enforcement agencies
require incumbent officers to maintain the vision standard
required for recruits. This means that many police agencies,
even those with strict uncorrected vision standards for
recruits, employ numerous veteran officers who now need to wear
corrective lenses in order to perform their duties. Still,
despite this fact, little concrete data exists concerning the
relationship between corrective lenses and police performance.
BASIC ISSUES
Three basic issues emerge as arguments for a restrictive
uncorrected vision standard. First, an officer who loses
corrective lenses becomes visually impaired and vulnerable to
physical assault. Second, the officer will not be able to see
sufficiently to aim a service weapon, and as a result, may
become vulnerable to an armed suspect. Third, the officer's
vision will be too impaired to operate a police vehicle, and
therefore, the officer could not pursue a fleeing suspect. In
addition, a corollary to these issues emerges. If an officer's
ability to perform becomes hampered, then other officers will be
placed at a similar risk due to the loss of support of the
vision-impaired officer.
Many observers both within and outside law enforcement
offer these beliefs in sincerity. However, some dissenting
opinions exist. With regard to the first issue, it could be
argued that an officer engaged in hand-to-hand combat does not
need eyeglasses to identify an assailant. At that range, the
officer would have to be nearly blind to be incapacitated. An
individual's uncorrected vision is not likely to be that bad if
it is correctable to 20/20.
Second, the vast majority of shoot-outs with handguns occur
at very close range. Of the 735 officers killed by firearms
between 1980 and 1989, for example, 652 (89 percent) were shot
from 20 feet or less. Indeed, nearly 60 percent of the
fatalities resulted from shootouts of 5 feet or less. (5) At
this range, officers point their firearms, rather than aim them.
Therefore, officers with less-than-perfect vision suffer from no
significant disadvantage. As the range increases, vision
capabilities become more important, but handgun accuracy
diminishes drastically as the distance increases beyond 20 feet,
regardless of the officer's vision.
Last, with regard to the issue of visual impairment and the
inability to pursue fleeing suspects, few issues currently
generate as much debate among police administrators as vehicle
pursuits. Several departments now prohibit pursuits in all but
the most extreme circumstances, and few departments possess the
facilities to teach effective pursuit procedures. In addition,
police vehicles are notoriously subject to poor maintenance.
These factors cloud arguments concerning vision
capabilities. Should perfect vision be required when proper
training and equipment are not. Those who question the need for
strict uncorrected vision requirements frame the question in
simple terms. If an officer feels inadequate to initiate a
vehicle pursuit, for whatever reason, the pursuit should not
occur. This remains true for any situation involving the
potential for pursuit and currently represents standard policy
in the majority of police agencies.
Finally, it may be argued that officers who lose their
corrective lenses in a duty-related incident are no more
impaired than officers with perfect vision who get foreign
objects in their eyes, such as chemical mace, fingers, or sand.
In some cases, an officer with corrective eyewear may actually
be better protected than those without eye covering.
RESEARCH STUDY
The lack of quantifiable data regarding the correlation
between corrective lenses and police performance hampers any
productive discussion of the subject. For this reason, a
research study was recently conducted in an attempt to clarify
the issue and provide sufficient baseline information so that
future debate might center upon fact rather than supposition.
Method
The survey method emerged as the logical means to determine
the association between vision requirements and police
performance. Unfortunately, no police agency contacted kept
relevant records in this area.
There may be several reasons for this lack of information.
One may be that officers who wear corrective lenses do not wish
to be perceived as weaker than those with perfect vision.
Therefore, they do not include information relating to any
vision-related incapacitation in police reports. Or, law
enforcement agencies may simply not perceive loss of corrective
lenses in a physical confrontation as a problem worth studying.
For whatever reason, agencies do not routinely record such
information in police databases. The only information available
appeared to be the cost to agencies for replacement of damaged
lenses. However, this information failed to address the issue
of police performance immediately after loss of the lenses.
Failing to obtain agency data relating to vision and
performance required that the research effort concentrate on
officers' experiences. While this method yielded primarily
anecdotal information, it remained the only viable way of
establishing some quantifiable data regarding this issue.
In order to gauge the relationship between vision and
policing effectively, the project focused on police managers
from a wide variety of agencies. The survey population
consisted of 92 police executives from across the United States,
England, Australia, and Canada attending a conference at the FBI
Academy in Quantico, Virginia. (6) The combined length of service
for the survey population totaled 1,714 years, for an average of
18.6 years per respondent.
Participants were asked if they knew of cases where
officers lost their corrective lenses in duty-related incidents.
If respondents answered yes, they were asked if the loss of the
corrective lenses resulted in injury to the officer or to
others.
Further, researchers asked if the loss of corrective lenses
prevented the officer from completing the activity being
attempted at the time of loss. Then, respondents were asked to
report any incidents in which impaired vision presented a
problem, regardless of corrective lenses. Finally, researchers
asked respondents to offer comments about police vision
standards and to provide phone numbers for further contact.
Results
Of the 92 participants, 48 (52 percent) said they knew of
incidents where officers lost their corrective lenses in the
course of duty. Forty-four (48 percent) knew of no such
incidents. Twelve respondents (13 percent) recalled incidents
where officers sustained injuries related to the loss of
corrective lenses. Five (5 percent) reported incidents in which
loss of corrective lenses impaired an officer's performance, and
12 (13 percent) recalled incidents where impaired vision
unrelated to corrective lenses created a problem.
While the data appear fairly straightforward and easy to
interpret, several factors actually make it more complex.
Analysis of comments and followup telephone interviews revealed
misinterpretation in several responses to the questionnaire.
For example, a number of respondents understood the question
regarding injuries to mean wounds suffered during the specific
incident in which officers lost corrective lenses. In fact, the
intent of the question was to determine if respondents knew of
incidents where loss of lenses directly led to an ensuing
injury. The same confusion occurred with regard to the question
of performance. These misinterpretations led to a slightly
inflated representation of the number of cases with injuries.
By analyzing the comments on the survey instruments and
conducting followup telephone interviews, a slightly different
picture emerged. In nine of the cases where respondents
reported injuries, the wounds were not due to lost corrective
lenses and presumably would have occurred anyway. The injuries
happened during the same struggle that caused the officers to
lose their lenses. In one case, a subject struck an officer
with sufficient force to render him unconscious. The force of
the blow also broke the officer's glasses. Similarly, two of
the incidents initially reported as failures to perform
adequately due to lost eyewear were physical confrontations in
which the officers lost corrective lenses but still controlled
the subjects and the situations.
In these cases, loss of lenses inconvenienced the officers,
but did not impair their performance. Likewise, in several
instances, an officer's failure to complete an assignment
actually resulted from an accompanying injury, rather than lens
loss.
Additionally, several anomalies bear mention. One
respondent initially reported that he sustained injury when he
lost his corrective lenses. A followup interview determined
that vision impairment did not lead to the injury. Rather, when
a subject knocked a pair of expensive eyeglasses from his face,
the officer instinctively reached for them. When he did so, the
subject grabbed and twisted his arm. Although sustaining an
injury to his arm, the officer did regain control of the
subject.
Another respondent reported that an officer who lost his
lenses could not read the license number of an escaping
suspect's vehicle. However, his partner did manage to record
the number, leading to an eventual arrest.
In addition, several respondents reported instances where
officers' eyeglasses became temporarily fogged as they exited
air conditioned vehicles. One respondent also reported that
exposure to sand and wind required officers with contact lenses
to take periodic breaks for lens cleaning.
Ultimately, only three of the reported cases of injury or
failure to perform satisfied the intended perimeters of the
survey questionnaire. This represents 3 percent of the survey
sample. When accounting for the number of service years
represented by the respondents, the number equates to 1 case per
every 571 years. Of these, only one incident could be verified.
The sole verified case involved a major shootout between
several FBI agents and two heavily armed suspects. After the
exchange of gunfire, two of the agents and both suspects lay
dead, and five other agents sustained serious wounds.
Immediately prior to the shootout, one of the agents lost his
glasses when he brought his automobile to an abrupt halt just
feet from the suspects' vehicle. He was fatally wounded during
the ensuing gunfight, and his fellow agents speculate that the
loss of his glasses significantly affected his ability to
observe the movements of the gunmen. If that assessment is
accurate, then the loss of eyewear may be cited as a
contributing factor in the agent's death.
The experiences of the officers surveyed indicated that
officers wearing corrective lenses do encounter situations in
which they momentarily lose their corrective lenses or have them
forcibly removed. However, the vast majority of these cases
occur in arrest situations or within detention facilities.
These face-to-face confrontations rarely involve weapons. In
most of these cases, the loss of lenses produced no negative
results either for the officer or the eventual outcome of the
situation.
In their personal commentaries, respondents expressed
uniform opposition to uncorrected vision standards. Several
noted that their agencies lost a number of well-qualified
applicants, who later gained employment in other agencies. The
following comment offered by a lieutenant in charge of training
and personnel for his department typifies the observations:
"I think this is one of the most meaningless fitness
standards remaining to bar qualified people from police
service. While I am sure that somewhere at some time some
officer was seriously hurt and maybe died because of an
eyesight issue--lost glasses, etc.--officers have not been
fired, dismissed, or even had assignments changed because
of diminished sight capacity after the hiring process.
This standard only serves to eliminate otherwise qualified
and acceptable candidates."
In addition, several officers offered personal accounts.
They acknowledged their own vision problems and argued that
their performance remained unhindered. Several reported that
their agencies changed their standards due to lawsuits. Other
respondents reported that their agencies were reevaluating their
standards because they felt the current requirements barred too
many qualified candidates.
CONCLUSION
Does this mean that law enforcement agencies should
immediately eliminate their policies concerning standards for
uncorrected vision? Not necessarily. This study is neither
sufficiently comprehensive nor scientifically representative
enough to draw such a sweeping conclusion.
However, surveys of this type do provide a starting point
for meaningful discussion. The arguments upon which agencies
base uncorrected vision requirements offer little in the way
of empirical support. They remain based on largely hypothetical
arguments. Nowhere has any agency documented such situations
and studied the data concerning this issue.
This points to the underlying problem. Police vision
standards, as well as other areas, should be based on proven
capabilities necessary to fulfill the terms of employment.
Instead, the reverse often happens.
Lacking supporting data, law enforcement agencies adopt
standards based on "what if" scenarios. In the process, they
lose qualified applicants and perpetuate myth-based standards
with questionable relationships to police performance or agency
needs. Perhaps this survey and future studies can help to
counter these myths and lead to a more productive approach in
establishing vision standards for today's law enforcement
agencies.
ENDNOTES
(1) Richard N. Holden, "Vision Standards for Law
Enforcement: A Descriptive Study," Journal of Police Science and
Administration, 12, 1984, 125-129.
(2) O.W. Wilson, Police Administration (New York:
McGraw-Hill Co., 1961); James E. Sheedy, Jeffrey T. Keller,
Donald Pitts, Gerald Lowther, and Stephen C. Miller,
"Recommended Vision Standards for Police Officers," Journal of
the American Optometric Association, 54, October 1983, 925-928;
Gregory W. Good and Arol R. Augsburger, "Uncorrected Visual
Acuity Standards for Police Applicants," Journal of Police
Science and Administration, 12, 1987, 18-23; C.J. Forkiotis,
"Vision Requirements and the Police Officer Selection Process,"
Police Chief, November 1981, 56-59.
(3) Michael A. Sciales and Leonard Territo, "Eyesight
Standards for Police Applicants," Police Chief, February 1983;
James E. Sheedy, "Contact Lenses for Police Officers," Journal
of the American Optometric Association, 57, 1986, 658-660; Terry
Cox, Annis Crabtree, Daniel Joslin, and Adrienne Millet, "A
Theoretical Examination of Police Entry-Level Uncorrected Visual
Acuity Standards," American Journal of Criminal Justice, 11,
1987, 199-208.
(4) Brown County v. LIRC, 124 Wis. 2d. 560, 397 N.W. 2d.
735 (1985).
(5) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, U.S.
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1989,
Washington, DC.
(6) The First International Symposium on the Future of Law
Enforcement, FBI National Academy, Quantico, Virginia, April
1-5, 1991.