After only a quarter of of Punjab's 19,000 police officers passed a fitness test, Pakistan is to insist on 38-inch waistlines. Senior officers are, of course, exempt. [Reuters]

  • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

    In their defence I can’t imagine that a senior officer needs to do a lot of running.

    That said a waistline rule is a little personal (and misguided), aren’t there better metrics for fitness? Like measuring their fitness?

    • EvilSpirit

      I don’t see how you make a fitness rule without it being “personal.”

      There are certainly better metrics for fitness, but probably no radically better ones that you can administer in 10 seconds per officer.

      • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

        You could measure their ability to do the job. Like be able to run 1 km within a specified time then tackle somebody. That sort of thing.

        • Antinous / Moderator

          That would require dedicating resources to testing them and creating a testing system which would be far easier to bypass via bribery.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dmaclennan2 Darren MacLennan

    Chief Wiggum: “Look at you men. You’re a bunch of marshmallows!”

    Officer: “Why don’t you try, chief?”

    Wiggum: “Because I’m too…important.”

  • abstract_reg

    Lets make tougher restrictions, that way even more people will fail!
    Help them get fit? What a ridiculous idea!

    • EvilSpirit

      What kind of help do you propose they need? New shoes?

      Remember that your solution needs to scale to over 14,000 unfit officers.

      • slayer1

        What is wrong with a weight limit? They are public servants, for FSMs sake! ALL police should have min requirements for service. They are paid (by the people) to be able to respond to crisis. I wonder about the fat-ass country cops we have in America, must be a nice living.

  • Moriarty

    Tangential surprising aspects of this story:

    1) They measure waistlines in inches in Pakistan?

    2) There are only 19,000 cops in Punjab, which Wikipedia tells me has a population over 90 million? In comparison, New York City has 35,000 cops for a population of 8 million.