Susanville Police Officer Jim Wages is shown demonstrating Lassen County’s new polygraph instrument to City Clerk Jim Jeskey. Wages recently completed a five-week course at Gormac Institute of Polygraph in Arcadia new Los Angeles which enables him to serve Lassen and Modoc County law enforcement agencies as a polygrapher whenever he is needed. The instrument, a $1500 three-channel Stoelting was obtained by a state grant which also provided for Wages, instruction at Gormac.
Jim Wages Completes Course on Operation of Polygraph Machine
March 28, 1974
James Wages, a member of the Susanville Police Department for the last five and a half years, has become Lassen County’s first polygrapher after successful completion of a five week course in e Arcadia near Los Angeles.
Wages’ instruction and purchase of the polygraph instrument for the local area was made possible through a grant obtained from the state by the Department of Criminal Justice’s Regional office on Redding, Shasta County. The grant provides for the $850 tuition fee and the $1500 to purchase the instrument while law enforcement agency agrees to pay the officer’s salary while he is attending the school.
Shasta and Siskiyou Counties are also covered in the grant which was applied for in an effort to help clear up felony cases.
Wages said “although the amount of certain felonies has increased in recent years the conviction rate is way down.”
Wages will cover Modoc in addition to Lassen County and will be available to other law enforcement agencies throughout California upon request from the State Department of Criminal Justice. Wages will continue to assume his regular duties with the Susanville Police Department.
Wages received his instruction at the Gormac Institute of Polygraph, recognized as the only school for polygraphers on the West Coast. The five week course covered mechanical training, test construction, chart markings, physiology, psychology, interrogation. legal aspects, courtroom testimony, report writing, records, sex and paternity cases, personnel screening and running actual tests with actor subjects.
Wages described a polygrapher as “a recorder of body reactions to an outside stimulus. The outside stimulus consists of questions asked by the polygrapher with the whole thing working on a ‘fight or flight’ syndrome. The polygraph instrument record heart action, galvanic skin response and breathing. The polygrapher established a norm with the stimulus and then watches to see for the norm changes. If the norm changes, there may or may not be a deceitful response depending upon the kind or amount of stimulus.”
Wages said that polygraph tests are entirely voluntary. They are used for suspects in a crime, witnesses in the crime to verify exactly what they saw and victims to determine if the crime was actually committed. Tests are also used for personnel screening in certain types of industries.
Wages explained that contrary to popular belief, “a polygraph is not a lie detector, it is rather a truth-telling device. The only lie detector is the human body.”
According to Wages, the Los Angeles Police Department finds the polygraphy instruments 99 percent accurate with the other one percent consisting of abnormal persons.
Further information concerning polygraphy can be obtained by contacting Wages at the Police Department.
