Reform the Police by Recruiting Women

One of the criticisms of women who want to enter policing is that they lack the skills to perform as well as police officers “on the beat.” Retired Newark, New Jersey Police Chief Ivonne Roman (2020) contests this view. Writing in Police Chief, she summarized data on female versus male measures of performance on duty.

Roman found that women's personality attributes are appreciated in the way they handle themselves in the field. This appreciation comes through in surveys of the public. As women become a viable force in police departments, studies show that the community relates better to those departments and rates them higher on job performance, trustworthiness, and fairness. Moreover, there is evidence that women have a calming effect on male partners in high-stress and dangerous assignments, resulting in fewer police deaths.

Research cited by Roman has found female officers less likely to use force, use excessive force, or be named in a lawsuit than male officers. And even though studies show that subjects use the same amount of force against female officers as against male officers, in some cases more force, female officers are more successful in defusing violent or aggressive behavior. Roman decries the persistent hiring deficit of women in policing in light of documentation spanning more than 50 years, showing the benefits women offer (Roman, 2020).

In the early 1980s, the entry of women into police patrol work was in its infancy. Before that time, their police work was confined to the office and cases involving child and female victims. Because it was controversial to have women on patrol with men, a spate of articles in the criminal justice literature were devoted to defending the practice with titles such as Why Women Are Suited to Police Patrol Work or What Women Can Bring to Patrol.

In 1981 I decided to turn the argument around to ask a question no one had thought of by publishing the article Are Men Suited for Police Patrol Work? (after many rejections) in the British journal Police Studies. Although I wrote the article as tongue in cheek, the data indicated that given the bungled and excessive male-generated shootings, police car crashes, and sexual harassment incidents, there was still a place for men in policing. Their physical strength was impressive, and they were biologically better able to handle the rotating and all-night work shifts. Nevertheless, given their problems relating to the public and lack of control in hostile situations, their involvement in policing should come with a strong cautionary note. The comparison between women's and men's performance evaluations leaned decidedly in favor of women.

Although the article was meant as satire, the Akron Beacon Journal highlighted the publication with the misleading headline Males Unsuited for Police Patrol Work, Professor Says. The publicity was unfortunate for me and most likely a factor in being denied tenure in the criminal justice department at Kent State University, a department dominated by ex-police officers and police chiefs.

Today, in researching the chapter on policing for a new edition of the forthcoming textbook, Women and the Criminal Justice System, my mind returns to truths unwittingly revealed in that long-ago article mainly conceived in jest. What if a woman had responded to the call from the grocery store about the counterfeit twenty-dollar bill? Would George Floyd have ended up dead? How about Breonna Taylor being killed while lying in her bed?

And what if women wrote the curriculum for the police academy education? Would they be based on military training manuals with a stress on physical strength requirements and weapons usage? Or would an emphasis be on subduing violence and resolving conflict?

And if even half of the leadership positions in policing were occupied by women, would a macho police culture (characterized by the tolerance of violence treatment of suspects, racism, male bonding, and a code of silence in the face of wrongdoing) begin to subside?

Research shows that women police chiefs and city mayors, often African American, are striving even in the face of overwhelming resistance to help move police departments from a force of warriors often recruited from the military to one of the guardians with backgrounds in the social sciences (Carlson, 2021). Police chiefs and mayors push for reform (washingtonpost.com). Research also shows that a significant stumbling block to police reform is the power of police unions, politically right-wing, dominated by older white men, and aptly called the Fraternal Order of Police. This organization vigorously opposes progressive change and protects officers charged with the abuse of suspects or with a history of domestic violence (Balko, 2013; Kindy and Berman, 2020). The case for effecting change by recruiting different types of people to serve as officers begins with looking at the research literature on policing.

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Based on gender, women police officers have certain advantages, mainly stemming from psychological traits such as intuition. This fact was brought to light in the cracking of the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case, which had gone unsolved for 18 years.

One day officers Allison Jacobs and Lisa Campbell said they would not forget. The day began as they met with a man to discuss an upcoming event on the University of California campus in Berkeley. The man, Phillip Garrido, had his two children with him. Something about his relationship with the girls struck the officers as strange, as facts revealed in conversations the officers initiated with the girls. Later, when they conducted a background search of Garrido, they discovered he was a convicted child molester who was on parole. Further investigation eventually led to the girls' mother, who had been kidnapped 18 years before by Garrido. Jacobs, in an interview on CNN (2009), explained how she was able to pick up on the clues:

My police intuition was kicking in, but I would say it's more of a mother's intuition. I was worried about these little girls. I knew something wasn't right. I could kind of see it in their eyes, although I didn't know what it was. And just being the protective mom that I am, my reaction was to try and do what I could to help them. Officers who cracked missing girl case: Something wasn’t right.

Now, thanks to these women, who have received praise as heroes in news reports worldwide, there was a breakthrough in a kidnapping case that had stumped authorities for almost two decades. And two children and their mother can start a new life. These women got where they are today because of the pioneers who blazed the trail before them in the face of continuous resistance to the idea of women on patrol.

In past and more recent studies, researchers consistently demonstrated that women could handle the crime-fighting, rescue, combat, peacekeeping, and social service aspects of police work as well or better than men, regardless of differences in the biological constitution and socialization practices. These studies also generally indicated that men could rely just as much on women as partners as on men. The move toward community policing and working with ethnically diverse populations has put a premium on conflict resolution skills instead of the “warrior-like skills” that police training academies and popular culture sometimes stress (Pennsylvania State Police, 1974; Perlstein, 1972; Sichel et al., 1978; van Wormer and Bartollas, in press).

Given the strength of the police union and the political support for veteran preference, the road toward reshaping police culture will be a long one. Happily, calls for structural change have never been so loud. “I can't breathe” has become the rallying cry of protests across the nation and worldwide. The drive for real systemic change is in the wind, and few can ignore the consistent calls in news articles for hiring women and minorities; diversity is more essential than ever at this time.

Progressive female police chiefs urge a transition from the recruitment of warriors to the hiring of guardians and from the militarization of policing to demilitarization and building trust in high-crime neighborhoods. The influx of women into policing and replacing men of the old school with women and men educated in the social sciences and humanities could promote respect for the police and reduce police killings.