Women in Crime Solving II

The two books I mentioned in today’s earlier post were about woman police chiefs.  It got me to thinking about women in high-ranking law enforcement positions.  I did some research on the Internet to see how many we actually have. I just marvel at how much easier this was than when I researched topics for both my undergrad and graduate work. I can just sit here in my recliner in my comfys.

In a 2001 survey, women made up only 12.7 % of the force on municipal police departments with 100 officers or more. In the same survey, when they looked at law enforcement officers in all city, county, and state agencies and departments women made up 11.4 % of the cumulative total.  Of that combined total only 9.6% of sergeants and lieutenants were women and 7.3% of captains and above were women. (“ Police Chief” magazine of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Jan 2013)

What do the preceding percentages mean?  We need to increase the number of female officers in order to increase the pool of captains and above to promote to Chiefs. The same article cited the two major barriers that exist in some departments to the recruiting and maintaining female officers to be sexual harassment and poor maternity leave policies.

According to a 2009 Chicago Tribune article there were 212 female police chiefs in the United States, which made up 2% of the police chiefs in this country.

As a culture, would we benefit from having more women in law enforcement? Should the ratios reflect that of our population? Do we benefit from having female police officers? How as a society do we get more young women interested in pursuing careers in law enforcement?

Til next time,
Sally S