Women Representation in Law Enforcement

Women Representation in Law Enforcement

Women Working in Law Enforcement

The United States has proven once again that it is capable of change, and the election of the first African-American as president and the fact that his Republican opponent selected a female as his vice presidential running mate suggest that glass ceilings are shattering across the country even as this study was being researched. Unfortunately, the state of affairs that exists in the nation today did not come about overnight and the disparities of the past will likewise not be overcome quickly and this especially appears to be the case when it comes to the number of American women working in law enforcement today. The results of a comprehensive national survey administered by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past 20 years of state and local law enforcement agencies with 100 or more officers, known as the "Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics" (LEMAS), has clearly shown that the number of women in general and minority women in particular working in law enforcement in the United States has increased in recent years (cited in Lott, 2000). Despite these gains in representation, the research will clearly show that females remain underrepresented in some national, state and local law enforcement agencies, which is the focus of this study. This paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed, scholarly and organizational literature to determine the current levels of women working in law enforcement capacities across the country, and describes some of the constraints and obstacles that are typically experienced by these women. A summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Issues facing women in law enforcement today.

1) Pregnancy and family responsibilities. One of the fundamental gender-related issues that remains a salient issue for opponents of initiatives such as the Equal Rights Amendment is the fact that men and women are biologically different in ways that have historically influenced who would be responsible for childcare in the family, and although attitudes have changed significantly in recent years, humans continue to be plumbed in the same way today. Certainly, women in all professions are going to keep having babies, and they all become incapable of continuing many of their more physically demanding job responsibilities as their pregnancies progress. In the case of certain professions, though, such as the military, fire and rescue, and law enforcement agencies, these physical restrictions and the need to take time off from work for potentially extended periods of time contribute to female officers' challenges in their efforts to be viewed as "part of the team" and overcome the long-standing and pervasive all-male culture that characterizes many police departments today.

Unfortunately, these physiological differences are further exacerbated by long-held stereotypes concerning females with children who also aspire to a professional career that continue to pervade the law enforcement community. According to Sullivan (2005), "Some stereotypes -- women with preschool age children have worse attendance records than other workers because of their responsibilities, for instance -- have been the basis of formal policies clearly driven by intent, however defined" (p. 911). Because of the importance of their mandate, it is reasonable for law enforcement agencies of all types to emphasize the need for officers who are reliable and will be available for work when it is scheduled. The impact of such work-family conflicts on the ability of organizations of all types is well documented. According to Boles, Howard and Donofrio (2001), "Work-family conflict can be defined as a type of inter-role conflict wherein some responsibilities from the work and family domains are not compatible and have a negative influence on an employee's work situation" (p. 376). Because females are biologically required to be the partner who actually grows, nurtures and delivers a baby, the physical limitations and absence from work that having a family cause are therefore natural concomitants of being female. It is not surprising, then, that misperceptions, stereotypes, sexism and even jealously from male officers can adversely affect the perception of the value of having female officers on the force. This observation is congruent with Boles and his colleagues who report, "Results from previous research indicate that work-family conflict is related to a number of negative job attitudes and consequences including lower overall job satisfaction and greater propensity to leave a position" (p. 376). To date, a number of studies have examined the issues of work-family conflict and their impact on police officers. For instance, Boles and his colleagues cite a series of three articles by Burke (1994, 1993 and 1989) that generally determined work-family conflict to be an important factor in measuring attitudes about work as well as emotional and physical well-being. The findings from this series of studies showed a consistent correlation between work-family conflict and stress; furthermore, Burke also identified a potential direct inverse relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction (cited in Boles et al. At p. 376).

2) Sexual assault from fellow officers. Perhaps one of the most perplexing issues facing the nation's police departments is the lingering patriarchal nature of these organizations that has been referred to as a "hypermasculine culture" by some authorities. For example, in her study, "Gender, Violence Race, and Criminal Justice," Harris emphasizes that, "As of 1998, eight out of ten municipal police agencies with the largest percentage of sworn women officers are currently under, or have been under, consent decrees to hire women or minorities" (p. 777). The fact that fully 80% of the nation's police departments with the highest numbers of women only got that way by being forced to do so suggests that females may be highly resented by male officers who subscribe to the traditional male-only culture that has historically characterized these municipal police organizations. In this regard, Harris emphasizes that, "Nearly all of the largest gains for women in policing have been achieved only as a result of lawsuits initiated by women in law enforcement and women's organizations to force agencies to hire more women or minorities" (p. 777).

While resentment may be an understandable human reaction to being forced to do anything by a higher authority, the reaction of many male officers to the presence of females on "their" police force has been downright criminal in nature and hypocritical in the extreme. According to Harris, "Sexual harassment of women within police departments is reportedly rampant. As in other working-class, predominantly male work environments, police departments are often characterized by the stuff of which 'hostile environment' sexual harassment suits are made: pornography, attempts at inappropriate touching, and hostile sexual joking and teasing" (p. 777). Indeed, the existence of a group known as "Men Against Women" within the Los Angeles Police Department was confirmed following the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Commission of the Mark Fuhrman tapes. According to Spillar and Harrington (1997), "[T]his male-only rogue group's purpose [was] to wage an orchestrated campaign of ritual harassment, intimidation[,] and criminal activity against women officers with the ultimate objective of driving them from the force" (p. 3). Unfortunately, this anti-female mentality appears to transcend the workplace in some disturbing ways. According to Harris, "Sexual harassment is not the only problem in law enforcement agencies; so too is domestic violence. Indeed, law enforcement agencies have shown little or no commitment to investigating and punishing domestic violence. In fact, studies have found that as many as forty percent of male law enforcement officers commit domestic abuse themselves" (emphasis added) (p. 777).

3) Physical demands in comparison to policemen. According to Reilly and Karlstad (2004), "Career paths such as law enforcement, firefighting, and the military have strict fitness standards that must be met by prospective employees" (p. 21). Although the physical demands of law enforcement work are virtually identical for women and men, the physical capabilities of these two groups are, not surprisingly, significantly different. In this regard, Zhao and his colleagues (2001) emphasize that, "The change toward greater gender equity may be more difficult for police agencies. Accommodation of gender equity is complicated by the occasional use of force required in the line of duty. The use of force is believed to require a heavy emphasis on physical strength and an imposing stature in the selection process" (p. 244). The results of physical strength testing of men and women employed in various law enforcement capacities have consistently identified significant differences in the physical abilities of men and women (Lott, 2000). According to Lott, "These studies indicate that women's strength ranges from 44 to 68% of men's in the upper body and 55 to 82% in the lower body" (p. 276); however, this author also notes that, "The norming adopted by most police departments for physical fitness tests creates equal probabilities for passing by men and women" (Lott, p. 276). Experts maintain that between 70 and 80% of the police departments in the country employ such norming techniques to allow female candidates to achieve the test results required of the positions they aspire to, and some point to the subjectivity involved in the administration of these testing regimens that allow otherwise-unqualified female candidates to be passed (Lott). In this regard, Lott points out, "Between 70% and 80% of police departments explicitly use norming of physical standards in their hiring practices. However, most of the departments that use objective standards do not enforce these rules. Women who fail to meet the absolute standards during academy training are unlikely to be failed out of the program" (p. 276). This lack of consistency in how these standards are applied across the country has caused many observers to lose confidence in their predictive ability. Moreover, in some cases, courts have even disallowed tests that result in differential pass rates between men and women candidates. Citing a 1980 case involving the Philadelphia Police Department, Lott reports that, "The district court ruled that it was unlawful to discharge women who 'failed to achieve a passing score on the firearms qualifying test'" (quoted in Lott at p. 276). As a result, the New York City Police Department simply abandoned all of its physical testing requirements for its law enforcement applicants during the 1980s based on the increasing incidence of litigation by minority and female applicants (Lott). According to Lott, "Some officers hired under relaxed testing lack the strength to pull the trigger on a gun. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of police officers on the streets today who, when a suspect runs from them, have no other option than to call another cop, because they do not have the physical ability to pursue them" (p. 276). Further complicating the physical disparities involved between male and female officers is the fact that the weapons used by female officers do not represent the same deterrent as when they are used by their civilian counterparts, simply because of the nature of the respective encounters involved. For instance, Lott advises, "A gun might not be as much of an equalizer for female officers as it is for women who use a gun defensively. Officers are frequently called on to have physical contact with the criminals that they are pursuing, whereas women who use a gun defensively merely use the gun to keep a threatening person at bay" (Lott, p. 276).

4) Women police officer's positions and promotions in comparison to policemen. According to Smith (2003), "Women have been a part of policing since the mid-nineteenth century but have often served in a limited capacity with very different roles from their male counterparts. Traditionally, women have served in specialized or support positions (e.g., matron, juvenile officer, administrative positions)" (p. 148). By and large, and while there are some important exceptions, it would appear that many women police officers continue to be relegated to these types of positions. For instance, Felperin reports that, "In 1985, Penny Harrington of the Portland Oregon Police Department became the first female Chief of Police, Today, once the last bastion of male domination in the workplace, police organizational attitudes are finally beginning to change. And yet serious problems still remain" (p. 2).

These "serious problems" also directly relate to the fundamental differences that characterize the types of positions held by male and female police officers today. Beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s, women began to seek a greater role and greater representation in the law enforcement community in general and the policing community in particular; although the representation of women in law enforcement has increased since that time, this increase slowed by 2000 (Smith, 2003) and actually began to decline. In this regard, Felperin emphasizes that, "In 2004, women accounted for only 12.7% of all sworn law enforcement positions in large agencies and the numbers are declining. The percentage of sworn female officers in smaller agencies is even lower (most agencies in the U.S. have fewer than ten sworn officers.) in spite of women comprising at 46.5% of the entire labor force" (p. 3). The trends that originally contributed to an increase in the numbers of women in law enforcement were due in large part to legislative initiatives at the time that were intended to afford women in the U.S. with a constitutionally level playing field in terms of employment. According to Zhao, Herbst and Lovrich (2001), "Noteworthy changes in female representation in policing began with the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since that time, we know with relative certainty that there are substantially more female officers in policing than there were 25 years ago" (p. 243). Based on an analysis of the results of several surveys of law enforcement agencies administered during 1980 and 1990, there has been a significant increase in the number of female officers employed in municipal police agencies during this period. In this regard, Zhao and his colleagues report that, "The percentage of female officers in police departments located in large cities increased from 4.6 to 12.6% during the period 1980 to 1990. Similar rates of increase in the percentage of female officers employed were also evident in medium and smaller-sized police agencies" (p. 244). In their study, "Gender, Representative Bureaucracy, and Law Enforcement: The Case of Sexual Assault," Meier and Nicholson-Crotty (2006) performed empirical analysis of data from the 60 largest metropolitan counties in the United States for the period from 1990 through 1997 and found that Police departments began recruiting more women (the share of female police officers nationwide increased from 2.1% in 1975 to 11.0% in 2000) and often established special rape task forces that included women officers.

By the turn of the 21st century, though, the rate of increase of employment for females in law enforcement capacities had decreased significantly. In fact, the results of a study of major police departments across the country by the National Center for Women and Policing (1999) determined that women accounted for just 13.8% of all law enforcement positions nationwide; furthermore, this organization also found that the employment rate of female sworn officers has increased a scant 3.2% from 1990 when women comprised 10.6% of all law enforcement personnel. The center concluded that, "With very few exceptions, women remain under represented at every level of sworn law enforcement and are essentially absent from the decision-making ranks and positions of authority" (National Center for Women and Policing, 1999, p. 6 quoted in Zhao et al. At p. 244). Although there are notable exceptions to these findings, in general, it would appear reasonable to assert that women have not been welcomed with open arms by many law enforcement agencies across the country in recent years, but this level of acceptance is a complicated affair. In this regard, Zhao et al. observe that, "This state of affairs suggests that the rate of employment and career advancement of female officers is likely affected by a wide variety of factors that act in a dynamic fashion, competing with each other in determining the degree of representation of female officers across the ranks in police agencies" (p. 244). As noted above, while impressive gains in employment were achieved by women in law enforcement agencies across the country over the past four decades or so, they remain woefully underrepresented across the board throughout law enforcement agencies at the local, state and national levels, particularly at the executive level.

The analysis of how these statistics play out at the local and region levels, though, is complicated by the manner in which the data is reported. For example, aggregate figures for female employment in law enforcement show that approximately 2% of all police officers were female in 1972, 8.8% by 1986, and about 10% by 1996 as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Women as percentage of all police officers in the United States: 1972-1996.

Source: Zhao et al., 2001; Felperin, 2004.

Even these modest gains, though, must be tempered by the fact that the vast majority of these additional female police officers were likely added in larger urban areas to the exclusion of their smaller municipality and rural counterparts. As Smith emphasizes, though, "These aggregate figures hide variation across agencies. For instance, in Detroit 19% of sworn personnel are female compared with 1% in Newark. Arguments parallel to increasing minority representation in policing are made in support of increased representation of women in policing" (Smith, p. 148). These observations would suggest that these percentages were likely even much lower for women employed in law enforcement agencies in smaller urban communities and rural areas.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that federal agencies currently employ 106,000 full time personnel who are authorized to make arrests and carry firearms; of these, 16.1% are women and 33.2% are minority members (Federal law enforcement statistics, 2008). One of the largest federal law enforcement agencies is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose mandate and responsibilities have expanded in the post-September 11, 2001 climate. Although all employment positions are open to men and women, women continue to be assigned to support position in the FBI in far greater numbers than their male counterparts, while coveted special agent position largely remain the purview of men. Current employment figures for women in the FBI are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

FBI Employee Statistics (as of June 30, 2003): Special Agents.

Number of Men

Percent of Total

Number of Women

Percent of Total

Total Group

Percent of Total

American Indian

Asian

Black

Hispanic

White

All Minorities

Source: FBI facts and figures, 2003.

As can be seen from Table 1 above, women continue to represent just 18. 1% of all special agent position in the FBI. By sharp contrast, though, women comprise a majority of support personnel employed by the FBI as shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2.

FBI Employee Statistics (as of June 30, 2003): Support Personnel.

Number of Men

Percent of Total

Number of Women

Percent of Total

Total Group

Percent of Total

American Indian

Asian

Black

Hispanic

White

All Minorities

Source: FBI facts and figures, 2003.

Figure 2. FBI Employee Statistics (as of June 30, 2003): Special Agent and Support Personnel - Percentage Men and Women.

Source: Based on tabular data in FBI facts and figures, 2003.

This paucity of female representation in law enforcement in the 21st century, a landmark period in American history where women are supposed to be afforded equal employment opportunity rights clearly demonstrates that there are some important and powerful forces at work that affect the attractiveness of this profession for many women, and these issues are discussed further below.

5) Commitment. According to Hoffnung (2004), "Most women today expect to work after they complete their education; the higher the educational level, the more likely the woman is to be employed. This increased commitment to career has led to the postponement of marriage and childbearing and to a decrease in the number of children born to educated women" (p. 711).

Nevertheless, while many young American women are committed to achieving their professional goals by delaying the start of a family, Hoffnung emphasizes that most also remain committed to eventually having one. This increased commitment to a profession has become especially pronounced in the last 30 years or so, and will likely continue to become even more important during shaky economic periods. In this regard, Hoffnung notes that, "Economic necessity, as well as commitment to career, contributes to continuation of employment after marriage and motherhood, as women's contribution to the family income has become essential since the 1980s" (p. 711).

6) Stress. As noted above, the life of a member of the law enforcement community is characterized by the same types of work-family conflicts as virtually any other type of profession in ways that introduce particularly high levels of stress for police officers. Beyond these otherwise-normal stressors, though, many police officers are routinely exposed to life-threatening encounters and other traumatic events that can result in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other emotional and physical problems related to their job responsibilities (Henry, 2004). As Iwasaki, Manneli & Smale (2002) point out, "Police and emergency response services have been identified as occupational groups that tend to experience very high stress levels both in work and family lives" (p. 311). Likewise, Tanigoshi, Kontos and Remley (2008) emphasize that, "To date, law enforcement is considered to be one of the most dangerous, stressful, and health-threatening occupations. Many researchers have suggested that life as an officer poses many hazards to the psychological, emotional, physical, spiritual, and social self" (p. 64). These finding would certainly account for the inordinately high levels of domestic abuse identified among male police officers cited above, and suggests that law enforcement is a highly stressful career field for many men and women today. These issues could reasonably be expected to be even more pronounced for minority women working in law enforcement who routinely confront other stereotypes concerning their ethnicity that affect their coworkers' perception of their abilities and overall "worthiness" to join their exclusive group of comrades in arms, and these issues are discussed further below.

African-American's women police officers in comparison to white women police officers. While most authorities agree that affirmative action has produced some positive results for women in the workplace (Leach, 2004), the results of studies of minority employment in law enforcement in recent years have identified several issues that appear to affect the number of women who are recruited and employed by police departments in various cities in positive or negative ways. For example, researchers have determined that the population of a city represents a significant predictor in how many female officers it will employ; likewise, larger cities likely have more resources available to recruit and provide training for female candidates than smaller municipalities (Lott). In this regard, Zhao and his colleagues (2001) report that, "City size may also be important for female officer recruitment because larger cities offer a broader range of employment opportunities. Additionally, these areas are more likely to have large concentrations of well-educated and civic-minded persons who support the implementation of affirmative action than do small cities" (p. 245). As a result, large urban police departments may enjoy a relatively balanced cadre of African-American women police officers that reflects the broader society the department serves, while those with comparable population percentages in smaller communities would lack such diversity.

This constraint makes the analysis of the experience of black and white female officers particularly problematic, but these constraints do not end there. For example, there are also some important differences in how minority female officers and white female officers might be perceived by the organization's leadership that can affect how each group is positively or negatively regarded and therefore treated by the rest of the organization. For example, Morris, Shinn and Dumont (1999) report that white women and minority officers can differ in two ways:

Perceptions of the command (such as the commanding officer's sensitivity to diversity) can vary systematically by ethnicity and gender, so actions perceived as fair by one group might be seen as discriminatory by another;

Relationships among variables might vary systematically across groups, so, for example, the commanding officer's sensitivity to diversity might be positively related to organizational commitment for one group but unrelated, or even inversely related, for another (Morris et al., p. 75).

These observations suggest that lawsuits and other affirmative action initiatives could potentially work to the detriment of white female officers, while favoring the promotion of their minority counterparts. These types of legally mandated human resource solutions, though, can also be reasonably be expected to backfire and engender even more resentment among male officers, as well as white female officers who have been denied promotional or other advancement opportunities because of a quota that did not include them. Furthermore, and despite these legislative initiatives, Kania (2004) emphasizes that, "Historically, minorities and women have been highly vulnerable to such abuses of 'selective enforcement' of policies, as have 'whistle-blowers' and change agents" (p. 54).