Women are the law in more police departments

As wits over brawn prioritized, more hold top cop posts

LOS ANGELES — When Anne Kirkpatrick took the helm at the scandal-ridden Oakland, Calif., Police Department, she inherited an agency that the city’s mayor likened to a frat house.

The veteran police officer knew she would be asked what it’s like to combat the culture as one of a growing number of women heading police departments, many struggling to repair their public image.

“What I will tell you is that I am a leader,” she said at a news conference announcing her appointment, listing qualities Oakland wanted in its police chief. “Those character traits are not gender-based. Those are leadership-based.”

Female police officers tend to use wits over brawn to de-escalate potentially violent situations, experts say, and as departments shift their focus to nonviolent techniques, it’s natural they would tap more women as leaders.

“A lot of police chiefs say women had a profound impact on the culture of policing,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank. “They bring their own set of skills to a traditionally male-dominated culture, and that is very helpful.”

Still, the number of women leading police departments pales in comparison with their male counterparts. Of the nation’s 50 largest police departments, five are led by women. A 2013 survey by the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives found 169 women leading the more than 1,500 police departments, sheriff’s offices and other law enforcement agencies across the U.S. that responded.

“It’s very pleasant to see some of these female chiefs across the country,” said Dawn Layman, the group’s president and a major in the Lenexa, Kan., Police Department. Still, she says, there’s much work to do.

As major cities continue to promote women to their top cop posts, Layman believes others will follow suit. “I think females just bring something different to the table,” she said. “The goal is to diversify the table.”

Decades ago, female officers faced a much different atmosphere — there were public protests over them, male officers refused to ride with them, and many had to file lawsuits to ascend the ranks. While the protests have subsided and the culture has changed within police departments, women still represent only a small fraction of the country’s police officers.

Wexler noted that research shows female officers tend to use communication to help defuse potentially volatile situations,

At the top

Here are the five largest police departments with female police chiefs: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ a technique many police departments are now shifting their focus toward.

“For women officers, this tends to come to them naturally,” he said. “I think departments who have had a lot of experience hiring women recognize how invaluable they are in defusing contentious situations.”

The first generation of female chiefs was in smaller police forces, including several university police departments, said Dorothy Moses Schulz, a professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of New York. In the past few years, she said, there appeared to be an uptick in women rising to the top of larger departments.

The public expects many of them to be able to reform departments with poor public images just because they’re women, she said. “They are supposed to be the healers. It’s a terrible burden,” said Schulz, who has written two books on women in policing.

Schulz added that more female officers are applying for upper-level jobs today than years ago, and they have a better chance of being selected.