5 Biggest Obstacles to Increasing the
Numbers of Women in Policing
1. Gender Bias. The negative attitudes of male officers and
command staff toward women, as well as the influence of the media in
continuing to support the stereotype of police officers as violent men who
engage in daily gun battles creates an environment of gender bias toward women
and the style of policing they utilize.
2. Outdated job descriptions of policing. As more
and more agencies move toward community policing, the requirements for police
officers must change. More emphasis should be placed on the skills of
de-escalating violence, mediation and working in cooperation with the
community instead of placing an emphasis on brute strength, obedience to
orders and high arrest rates.
3. Discriminatory physical agility standards that are not
job related. Most agencies continue to require a high degree of upper body
strength and use physical performance tests such as push-ups and scaling walls
to wash out women candidates. These standards are only for entry and officers
are never again required to meet them – in fact, most of the officers in
police agencies today could not pass the physical entry requirements if they
were re-tested.
4. Military boot camp style of training. Law enforcement
agencies continue to train their recruit officers using a "boot
camp" style that emphasizes physical prowess and obedience to orders in
preparation for a "war on crime." This outdated style of training
does not prepare officers for community policing and the skills that they need
to solve crime problems.
5. Gender Harassment within law enforcement agencies. Women
who successfully complete the hiring and training process to become police
officers are faced with daily harassment from their co-workers. Women’s
contributions to law enforcement are not valued. This continuous onslaught of
negative comments, lack of support, derision of their abilities and exclusion
from the group forces some women to quit, some to file lawsuits and some to
suffer on a physical and emotional level.