A police chief is hiring female officers to fix 'toxic' policing
Research generally supports the idea that female police officers are better than male officers at finding resolutions without using violence. A 2021 study found that female officers made 7 percent fewer arrests than their male counterparts while using force 28 percent less often. The researchers found the largest disparity centered on the treatment of Black civilians.
Female officers are, on average, more educated than male officers, more likely to engender the perception of fairness in the communities they police, more efficient in carrying out traffic stops that result in drug seizures and more effective in sex assault and domestic violence investigations, other studies show. Experts say female officers are less likely to fire their guns in the line of duty, use excessive force or become the target of successful civil suits.
Still, there are a few studies that found only minor differences in use-of-force incidents among male and female officers. And some research indicates that diversity cannot be a cure-all for departments, especially when traditional training and police culture remain in place. A 2003 look into police killings found that overall department diversity had little impact on outcomes, for example. A 2005 study of a suburban Maryland police department determined the difference between men and women in use of force to be statistically insignificant.
Samantha Simon, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, says she is “pessimistic about the usefulness of demographic diversity in police forces.” She has found that success or failure at combat is still valued above all other fields of study at most police academies, regardless of an officer’s gender. Police recruits who struggled in violent confrontations were more likely to be hazed than mentored, she concluded when researching an article and an upcoming book.
“The people who end up being hired and make it to graduation fit a blueprint of who the institution thinks will be a good police officer,” Simon said. “And a lot of that really revolves around the use of violence.”
Bellevue police leadership believes it’s too early to use data to understand what effect the influx of women is having, with the majority of the female officers having been hired in the last year and a half, and several still in training.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/women-police-nebraska/
= new reply since forum marked as read
“The people who end up being hired and make it to graduation fit a blueprint of who the institution thinks will be a good police officer,” Simon said. “And a lot of that really revolves around the use of violence.”
So she admits the blueprint values violence more than other skills.
A couple of other interesting points. There's a lot of "let the boys be boys" attitude to overcome.
But many others have been skeptical. Only seven of the 40 Midwestern law enforcement agencies Clary invited have signed up, McGough said. And during a seminar while the initiative was in the planning stage, a male chief told McGough and other organizers he was reluctant to hire women, for fear they’d be sexually harassed by male officers and sue the department.
The women in the audience were incredulous.
“So, not that he needed to address the behavior of the officers, right?” McGough said in an interview. “We don’t want to deal with the sexual harassment suits that would come from a woman.”
And training that focuses on violence over communication.
The Bellevue Police Department, like most smaller law enforcement agencies, does not run its own police academy. Many recruits attend Sarpy Douglas Law Enforcement Academy, a regional facility serving multiple departments. Several Bellevue officers said instruction at the academy was heavy on violence and light on some of the skills they’d come to learn months and years into the job. Combat scenarios were common, but the scenario simulating negotiations with potentially violent civilians under duress lasted 15 minutes, Wrigley said.
Hats off to Police Chief Ken Clary!
