Are Crockett and Tubbs too smart?

[Lifeguard]

I'm a lot more knowledgable about how police departments work now than when I was just a teenage/college viewer when Miami Vice was originally airing.  For a long time I've known about the Wonderlic Contemporary Cognitive Ability Test (formerly the Wonderlic Personnel Test) use in police hiring, and how they not only have a minimum but a maximum score for rejecting candidates.  Police candidates pass the Wonderlic test if they have a score between 21 and 27.  A score of 22 equates to an IQ of 100, so anyone with IQs under 98 or over 111 are refused.  Now watching Crockett and Tubbs working, there is no way they are only marginally more intelligent than average.  Just on their vocabulary skills alone, they would score pretty high on that component.  

So I have to ask the question.....are Crockett and Tubbs too intelligent to have ever been hired by the NYPD and Metro-Dade PD?

I've taken my own IQ tests over the years, so I know I'm way out of the range for being hired by police departments.  Many people criticize that policy for creating a problem of having police officers who are don't think critically in their arrests or detectives who can't catch criminals who are two smart for them.  The argument police departments make is that people who score high quickly become bored with mundane police duties and quit because they are not challenged.  Perhaps this is the reason for Crockett and Tubbs becoming burned out ultimately and leaving.  They were too intelligent for their jobs.  They could see the futility of the Nixon/Reagan drug war, the ruination of the lives of those least powerful in this system, and the rampant corruption between traffickers and the politicians who were working in each other's interests.  I guess Miami Vice is much like the Untouchables and alcohol prohibition, heroic fighters in what ultimately is a doomed to failure public policy.  Looking at it now with decades more life experience, I see a much different lesson from the series overall than I did back in the '80s.  

[Vicefan7777]

This is a very intriguing post.  I just took a sample test of the Wonderlic test and am amazed at the amount of math questions.  I have to ask how does so much math relate to police work?  I was a security officer in the Air Force when Vice was on tv and rarely had to use math in the day to day management of 60 cops. I also did 6 years of private security.  I believe that "street smarts" is a better indicator of how well a new police officer will do on the job.  Yes I still believe police officers should be college educated like Crockett and Tubbs.  So to get to your main question, I do not think Crockett and Tubbs were too smart to be hired.  Burnout?  Just look what these characters did.  Undercover all the time, losing their identity, seeing so much corruption, dodging death.  I can fully understand becoming a zombie wondering if today is my last day above ground. 

[Lifeguard]

4 hours ago, Vicefan7777 said:

This is a very intriguing post.  I just took a sample test of the Wonderlic test and am amazed at the amount of math questions.  I have to ask how does so much math relate to police work?  I was a security officer in the Air Force when Vice was on tv and rarely had to use math in the day to day management of 60 cops. I also did 6 years of private security.  I believe that "street smarts" is a better indicator of how well a new police officer will do on the job.  Yes I still believe police officers should be college educated like Crockett and Tubbs.  So to get to your main question, I do not think Crockett and Tubbs were too smart to be hired.  Burnout?  Just look what these characters did.  Undercover all the time, losing their identity, seeing so much corruption, dodging death.  I can fully understand becoming a zombie wondering if today is my last day above ground. 

Well the Armed Services don't have a maximum IQ requirement like police departments do, so scoring to high on those tests is not an issue.  A private security firm might have a maximum score if they use the Wonderlic but probably not.  So you probably weren't denied either of those jobs by scoring too high.  Crockett and Tubbs would have had to take the Wonderlic test in the '70s, and I think they would have washed out on it by scoring too high. Under police hiring practices, most fictional detectives should have never been accepted onto the force to begin with.  Although having good street smarts probably already indicates a higher IQ to begin with.

Actually rereading your post again on your math question, I think I can clarify that.  The Wonderlich test is a cognitive skills test, not a basic police skills test.  It's not testing you on whether you have the skills to be a police officer.  It's basically a fast IQ test, determining how good you are at learning and problem solving.  It's given as part of the hiring practice for a lot of professions.  It has three components; verbal, math, and reasoning.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Lifeguard

[mvnyc]

This is an interesting thread (that I don't think has ever been posted before).  I don't know about being too smart, I would say that Tubbs had the "street smarts" where Crockett had more "intellect and reasoning" skills, the combination of the two made them a good pair... 

[Tony D.]

If they had superior intellects, I would say that's why they are not just ordinary detectives but undercover detectives where their quick thinking & street smarts are a must!

I never assumed they were college educated as Vicefan7777 stated.

[Lifeguard]

Crockett had some college before his knee injury.  He may have completed an Criminal Science degree after leaving the Army.  I don't remember hearing Tubb's education mentioned in any episodes?  

[vicegirl85]

Tubbs did mention going to night school in Season 3 (Better Living Through Chemistry?)  I know it was never specified but I always assumed Crockett finished college before Vietnam.

[Matt5]

Good point I had forgotten Tubbs mentioned that in Better Living Through Chemistry?

[Lifeguard]

6 hours ago, vicegirl85 said:

Tubbs did mention going to night school in Season 3 (Better Living Through Chemistry?)  I know it was never specified but I always assumed Crockett finished college before Vietnam.

In the pilot episode it sounded like he lost his scholarship when he blew his knee and had to drop out.  Then he got drafted for Vietnam.

[vicegirl85]

I never could tell.  

Tubbs seemed to think Crockett had been headed for the NFL with a bright future as a pro, which made me think he was at least a senior when he tore up his knee.  Not saying it didn't happen earlier or that he didn't drop out, but I just never took it that way.  If he finished college he could have possibly gone in as an officer or been promoted quickly, and based on conversations in Buddies and Back in the World, it seemed to me like Sonny was in a leadership role during his tour, I just always assumed he was an officer (I'm talking Army 2nd Lieutenant level, not some high-ranking colonel, etc.)  and therefore a college graduate. 

I read one of the novelizations of the early episodes (The Vengeance Game and Florida Burn) way back when and may have gotten the idea from that book.  Or maybe I just made a leap of faith in assuming that.  But it's what I always thought.

[Lifeguard]

Yeah, the little bit we hear or see of Crockett in Vietnam, it did not seem like he was a platoon leader.  With some college, he would have made E4 corporal right off the bat, and in wartime an E5 sergeant promotion in the field would likely have come quick.  Being an infantry squad leader may have been likely.  But if he graduated college before being drafted, he should have just gone OCS and gotten his O1 butterbar lieutenant and been given a platoon to lead.  It's possible he was military police, but I always got the impression he was 11B infantry (the B is for bullet-stopper).  I'm also not sure how he made it through the draft board with his knee messed up.  He should have medicaled out if it kept him from running.  But with the GI Bill, he may have completed his courses stateside and gotten his BS in criminal science.  

[Lifeguard]

Some random speculation on Tubbs, but since he mentioned night classes, maybe he came in through a police academy as a patrolman and worked his way through his degree at nights.  Perhaps his older brother had some pull and was able to get him on the force right away.  I always assumed he had a sergeant rank with the NYPD when he came to Miami, and that's why he got his gold shield after a year.  

[vicegirl85]

4 hours ago, Lifeguard said:

(snipped) With some college, he would have made E4 corporal right off the bat, and in wartime an E5 sergeant promotion in the field would likely have come quick.  Being an infantry squad leader may have been likely.  But if he graduated college before being drafted, he should have just gone OCS and gotten his O1 butterbar lieutenant and been given a platoon to lead.  It's possible he was military police, but I always got the impression he was 11B infantry (the B is for bullet-stopper).  I'm also not sure how he made it through the draft board with his knee messed up.  He should have medicaled out if it kept him from running.  But with the GI Bill, he may have completed his courses stateside and gotten his BS in criminal science.  

You obviously know a lot more about the military than I do, and no doubt you are correct.  I did actually think he would have been sent to OCS upon completion of basic training; but he also could have moved up quickly if he did go in as enlisted.  

As far as his knee:  he liked to complain about it when it was convenient but I never noticed Crockett letting his knee stop him from chasing a suspect, LOL.  For my money, the knee injury meant he would not be able to run at the NFL level or as fast as he did before, rather than that he would not be able to perform most other functions.  But I have to admit, anyone would think that a soldier who needed to carry heavy gear in a combat situation would need his knees to be 100%.

But as my daughter would say, It's TV, Mom!

[Lifeguard]

20 hours ago, vicegirl85 said:

You obviously know a lot more about the military than I do, and no doubt you are correct.  I did actually think he would have been sent to OCS upon completion of basic training; but he also could have moved up quickly if he did go in as enlisted.  

As far as his knee:  he liked to complain about it when it was convenient but I never noticed Crockett letting his knee stop him from chasing a suspect, LOL.  For my money, the knee injury meant he would not be able to run at the NFL level or as fast as he did before, rather than that he would not be able to perform most other functions.  But I have to admit, anyone would think that a soldier who needed to carry heavy gear in a combat situation would need his knees to be 100%.

But as my daughter would say, It's TV, Mom!

Yeah, I graduated college ROTC in the early '90s with my O1 rank, ended up Individual Ready Reserve because of end of the cold war force reductions so I could go to grad school, and ended my 8 year stint with an O2 first lieutenant rank.  So I know a few things about the Army.  The were pretty light on the details of his service, but when he and Stone are on the aircraft carrier at the fall of Saigon, Crockett did not seem to be in command of a platoon that had been evacuated to the carrier.  He was kind of wandering around on his own.  But if he were an MP sergeant or lieutenant, maybe he was operating as part of the security of the evacuation with other MPs and didn't need to be directly supervising the other members of the MP platoon.  I was an infantry officer, so I don't know much about MP unit organization or operation.  As an infantry officer I was in one of two places usually, either overseeing my squads and working with my platoon sergeant, or I was at company HQ with the other platoon leaders along with the company commander (or XO, or sergeant major).  

If he went in enlisted during wartime with some college, he would definitely have made E5 before being pulled out.  It could also be that he graduated college, but elected not to complete OCS and stick to his two draft commitment instead of a longer commitment for someone completing officer training.  During my time you had an 8 year commitment after graduating ROTC.  I'm not sure if this was the case in the early '70s, but likely an officer commitment at that time would have been longer than the 2 year draft enlistment commitment.  So that's a likely explanation.

I haven't seen anyone ask why Tubbs was able to avoid the draft and not Crockett.  Both were about the same age, so he would have been signed up for selective service too.  But at the time, they ran a lottery on the draft numbers and most people in that age group were not called up.  Another possibility is that Tubbs was able to get into the NYPD after high school and got a deferment for that if it was possible.  Crockett may have had a college deferment after being called up initially, but after loosing his scholarship and having to drop out, he would have had to serve.

I always figured that after 10 years, his knee injury had improved.  Obviously it was still severe enough to prevent dancing at that point.  But with his injury pretty fresh upon drafted, it likely would not have fully healed.  But perhaps it was something that was serious to a football career, but not to soldiering or policing.  My biomechanics degree is a bit rusty, but what little I can remember of ACL injuries on the two bundles you could have an injury that inhibits some activity but not most activity.   But you daughter is probably more correct about lazy writing.

[vicegirl85]

Re:  Tubbs.  Initially it seemed that Tubbs was being portrayed as several years younger than Crockett, so he may have skated because he wasn't old enough to be drafted before the end of the war, or he may have had a very high draft number.  

Later the two seemed to be written as about the same age and with similar length of service in their police careers, so I'm not sure what happened (besides lazy writing, LOL).  Since PMT is actually within 6 months of DJ's age, it's easy to imagine them that way, but the discrepancy with their original portrayals isn't easy to explain in a way that makes sense!