Women in Policing
The Numbers Fall Far Short of the Need
Police Chief Magazine
The presence of women in policing in the United States lags well behind that of comparable countries. Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom all have nearly twice the U.S. percentage of policewomen.1 That persistent hiring deficit defies research spanning more than 50 years that well documents the benefits of women in policing.
Women are consistently rated as trusted by their communities and, importantly, are motivated to serve communities in an era of decreased police legitimacy.2 Women have high levels of interpersonal communication skills, which translates into more effective practices in the field.3 Women are found to have a calming effect on male partners in high-stress and dangerous assignments, resulting in fewer police deaths.4 Higher levels of female representation are associated with organizations that emphasize community policing.5 Female police officers have a positive influence on the perceived job performance, trustworthiness, and fairness of a police agency, perhaps increasing the public’s willingness to cooperate in the production of positive public safety outcomes.6
Female officers are less likely to use force, use excessive force, or be named in a lawsuit than male officers.7 Research has found that male officers were more likely than female officers to be aggressive as a result of some quality of the encountered member of the public, such as race or socioeconomic class8 Even though studies show that subjects use the same amount of force against female officers as against male officers, and in some cases, more force, female officers are more successful in defusing violent or aggressive behavior.9
Though the research confirms the many benefits of having more women in policing, female police representation in the United States has stagnated over the past 20 years at around 12 percent. This may be due to an unwelcoming culture within many police organizations.10 Old stereotypes associated with women are defended by elements of some police institutions, creating formidable barriers for female applicants and women navigating the profession. In surveys, female officers perceived that they were subjected to more criticism than their male counterparts, due to masculine values that support and advance masculinity, as well as sexism that negatively impacts women’s experience in policing.11
Research Evidence and Legal Challenges to Police Ability Tests
When women began to be hired by U.S. police departments, they were often segregated into gendered roles focusing on social service or they filled clerical positions. With the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, women’s participation in all aspects of law enforcement and public safety occupations increased, but only to a point. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) noted, “Once employers could no longer segregate women into peripheral jobs, they began using screening tests for public safety occupations.”12
Among the first screening tests were height and weight requirements. In the 1977 Dothard v. Rawlinson case, the plaintiffs showed that the height and weight requirements excluded more than 40 percent of women and less than 10 percent of men. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of height and weight as a screening mechanism was unlawful discrimination against women and some minority groups.13 In Blake v. City of Los Angeles (1979), a federal appellate court ruled that police height requirements violated Title VII because the police department did not establish that a height minimum was necessary for safe and efficient job performance.14
After the courts rejected height requirements, police departments turned to physical ability tests (PATs). The PATs were soon challenged, with plaintiffs alleging that the exams were specifically developed to screen out women rather than test work-required abilities.15 Flawed validation studies were found to be self-reinforcing.16 Research established that “on the rare occasions when the skills tested would be needed in emergency situations, other skills of teamwork, communication, and judgment were not tested.”17
Commonly, PAT policies overemphasize upper body strength, which may discourage female applicants.18 In a 2018 survey of criminal justice undergraduates in five universities, women comprised 56 percent of the sample, yet 46 percent of the women surveyed were apprehensive about the PAT for police careers.19 Women are right to be concerned about the PAT: Women fail police fitness tests at higher rates than men, though the validity of many PAT programs are in question.20
A researcher set out to investigate the experience of recruits in police academies. She applied and was accepted into a police academy training program, where she experienced recruit training firsthand. During participant observation as a police recruit, researcher Irene Prokos found that male recruits were indoctrinated through an “unofficial curriculum”:
By watching and learning from instructors and each other, male students developed a form of masculinity that (1) excluded women students and exaggerated differences between them and men; and (2) denigrated women in general.21
Courts have consistently ruled that PATs that produce disparities on the basis of gender are unlawful, unless they have been validated as bona fide work requirements (United States v. Virginia et. al., 1996; Bauer v. Lynch, 2016; U.S. v. City of Erie, 2005).22 Overemphasis on physical strength in police academies, without validation as a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ), runs afoul of the EEOC and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.23 However, many of the nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States continue to rely on PATs that produce disparate outcomes without validation of the tests’ alignment with work requirements.24
Some agencies have opted for PATs that are gender-normed, meaning the requirements differ for men and women. Currently, the U.S. Army, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and U.S. Marshals Service have gender-normed tests. To be sure, gender-normed PATs are not required, but the courts do require that any PAT selected be validated as measuring BFOQ, if it is to be defensible in court.25
In a challenge to gender-normed PATs, a male FBI trainee who failed the pushup requirements test on five occasions sued because women were required to perform fewer pushups than men. In deciding the matter of Bauer v Lynch, a federal appeals court held that physical fitness tests that account for physiological differences based on gender are not discriminatory as long as they impose equal fitness-level burdens on men and women, noting that “equally fit” men and women may achieve different raw scores on a PAT.26
As its rationale, the court stated that having identical requirements for men and women essentially demanded a higher level of fitness for women than for men because, “men and women are simply not physiologically the same for the purposes of physical fitness programs.” 27 The court did not prohibit gender-neutral tests—the ruling was specific to the legality of gender-normed tests. The court showed deference to the FBI, noting that the PAT was researched and piloted prior to implementation and was statistically defensible in testing fitness while avoiding disparities based on gender. A well-designed PAT program will be defensible in court, meeting both legal requirements and the physical requirements of the job.
The U.S. Army is in the process of developing a gender-neutral physical fitness test, with a research phase implemented over two years. The development process has included feedback from scientists, commanders, and soldiers. The exercises were selected for being “scientifically viable” in the degree to which they mimicked physical movements of soldiers on the battlefield. This is the validation process, in action. The Army is piloting the proposed PAT program in 60 battalions. This is the evaluation process, in action. The Army is training soldiers to pass the new fitness test, and it expects to fully implement the new fitness test program in October 2020.28 This is the implementation plan.
Conclusion
The current state of the law and progress in the U.S. military should be encouraging for women, and yet those advances only beg the question. How many of the United States’ 664 state and local police academies have a PAT that includes validation, implementation, and evaluation processes? How many of the 664 state or local agencies and police academies in the United States are investing in preparing applicants and recruits of all genders to pass the PAT?
Ivonne Roman is a former chief of police with the Newark, New Jersey, Police Department. She was selected and served for three years as a LEADS scholar at the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from Rutgers University–Camden, and is pursuing her PhD. She is also a TED Talks fellow, National Police Foundation fellow, and executive board member of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing.
Notes:
1 Tim Prenzler and Georgina Sinclair, “The Status of Women Police Officers: An International Review,” International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 41, no. 2 (June 2013): 115–131.
2 Natalie Todak, “The Decision to Become a Police Officer in a Legitimacy Crisis,” Women and Criminal Justice 27, no. 4 (2017): 250–270.
3 W. Dwayne Orrick, Best Practices Guide: Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover of Law Enforcement Personnel (Alexandria, VA: Smaller Police Departments Technical Assistance Program, international Association of Chiefs of Police, 2008).
4 Christine Jacqueline Johns, Effects of Female Presence on Male Police Officers’ Shooting Behavior (master’s thesis, Michigan State University, 1976).
5 Todak, “The Decision to Become a Police Officer in a Legitimacy Crisis.”
6 Norma M. Riccucci, Gregg G. Van Ryzin, and Cecilia F. Lavena, “Representative Bureaucracy in Policing: Does It increase Perceived Legitimacy?” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 24, no. 3 (July 2014): 537–551.
7 Kim Lonsway et al., Hiring and Retaining More Women: The Advantages to Law Enforcement Agencies (National Center for Women & Policing, 2003); Amie Shuck and Cara Rabe-Hemp, “Citizen Complaints and Gender Diversity in Police Organisations,” Policing and Society 26, no. 8 (2016): 859–874.
8 Judith Greenwald, Aggression as a Component of Police-Citizen Transactions: Differences Between Male and Female Police Officers (PhD dissertation, City University of New York, 1976).
9 Amie Shuck and Cara Rabe-Hemp, “Women Police: The Use of Force by and Against Female Officers,” Women & Criminal Justice 16, no. 4 (2005): 91–117.
10 Gary Cordner and Annmarie Cordner, “Stuck on a Plateau? Obstacles to Recruitment, Selection, and Retention of Woman Police,” Police Quarterly 14, no. 3 (September 2011): 207–226.
11 Joana Castelhano et al., “Police Training Course for Agents—Entry into the Profession and Also into the Distinction Between Men and Women,” Work 41, Supplement 1 (2012): 4637–4641.
12 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Program Evaluation: Recruitment & Hiring Gender Disparities in Public Safety Occupations (Office of Federal Operations, 2018), 12.
13 Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321 (1977).
14 Blake v. City of Los Angeles, 595 F.2d 1367 (1979).
15 Larry K. Gaines, Steve Falkenberg, and Joseph A. Gambino, “Police Physical Agility Testing: A Historical and Legal Analysis,” American Journal of Police 12, no. 4 (1993): 47–66.
16 Gaines, Falkenberg, and Gambino, “Police Physical Agility Testing,” citing Officers for Justice v. Civil Service Commission of the City of San Francisco, 395 F.Supp. 378 (N.D. Cal. 1975).
17 Tim Prenzler, “Rebuilding the Walls? The Impact of Police Pre-Entry Physical Ability Tests on Female Applicants,” Current Issues in Criminal Justice 7, no. 3 (1996): 314–324.
18 Anne Li Kringen and Madeline Novich, “Is It ‘Just Hair’ or Is It ‘Everything’? Embodiment and Gender Repression in Policing,” Gender, Work & Organization 25, no. 2 (March 2018): 195–213.
19 Charles Scheer, Michael Rossler, and Leonard Papania, “Interest in Police Patrol Careers: An Assessment of Potential Candidates’ Impressions of the Police Recruitment, Selection, and Training Processes,” Aquila (2018).
20 Michael L. Birzer and Delores E. Craig, “Gender Differences in Police Physical Ability Test Performance,” American Journal of Police 15, no. 2 (November 2017): 93–108.
21 Anastasia H. Prokos and Irene Padavic, “‘There Oughtta Be a Law Against Bitches’: Masculinity Lessons in Police Academy Training,” Gender, Work & Organization 9, no. 4 (August 2002): 439–459.
22 Andrew Ford, “NJ Police Tests Fail Women Recruits. Here’s How It Hurts Your Safety and Your Wallet,” app., February 25, 2020.
23 United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996); Bauer v. Lynch, 812 F.3d 340 (4th Cir. 2016); United States v. City of Erie, PA, 411 F.Supp.2d 524 (W.D. Pa. 2005).
24 Corina Schulze, “The Masculine Yardstick of Physical Competence: U.S. Police Academy Fitness Tests,” Women & Criminal Justice 22, no. 2 (2012): 89–107.
25 Ford, “NJ Police Tests Fail Women Recruits.”
26 Bauer, 812 F.3d 340.
27 Bauer, 812 F.3d at 350.
28 Meghann Myers, “Here’s an Early Draft of the Army’s New Fitness Test Standards,” Military Times, August 1, 2018.
Please cite as
Ivonne Roman, “Women in Policing: The Numbers Fall Far Short of the Need,” Police Chief Online, April 22, 2020.
