More Finest females are exiting the force
New York’s female Finest have plenty of reasons to be blue — and they are showing their displeasure by leaving the job in disturbing numbers, union data obtained by The Post reveal.
Attrition figures show 33% more women who are NYPD officers retired or resigned in 2022 (521) compared with 2021 (392), and the number of exits was 72% higher than in 2020 (303). This year’s numbers were not available. The NYPD’s 6,807 women account for 20% of the 33,971-member force.
Women Finest say they are not only dealing with anti-cop rhetoric and poor pay like their male colleagues, but also battle pressure and perceptions within the department about measuring up to the men.
“Definitely, morale is low,” said one female officer patrolling outside Rockefeller Center on Friday.
NYPD brass focuses on “what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong instead of making sure we’re OK,” she said. “Instead of making sure we’re taken care of, the higher ups just care about how they’re perceived.”
She added: “We are scrutinized more than men. Because there’s less of us — a lower percentage — male cops look at us like we can’t do the job. It’s a male-dominated department . . . . That’s the reality of it. That’s what we gotta go through.”
Female cops believe they have to go the extra mile to prove they belong, according to one high-ranking female officer.
“There’s always the sense we have to do more and work harder,” she said, but added she’s hopeful things are changing.
“There’s been a conscious effort to have more women in leadership positions,” she said. “I like how [Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell] conducts herself.”
However, professor Jillian Snider of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a 13-year veteran of the NYPD who retired in 2019, told The Post that Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks are hurting morale by “failing to give [Sewell] a reputable seat at the table,” thus undermining her authority.
“They haven’t given her enough of a platform to execute her own decision-making capabilities,” Snider said.
Sewell’s appointment “was a groundbreaking moment for women in the NYPD and it’s discouraging that she’s not able to fulfill the role for which she was appointed.”
One example was earlier this month when the NYPD scrapped the timed 1.5-mile run for academy recruits against Sewell’s wishes.
“I think what former [NYPD training] Chief Juanita Holmes did to Sewell was disrespectful,” Snider said. “She circumvented the office of the police commissioner and went right to the mayor.”
“Women, for the most, are still shunted to the background, playing minor roles in the department, relegated to more mundane responsibilities,” claimed Cathy Johansen, an upstate cop for over two decades and president of New York Women in Law Enforcement, whose members include the NYPD.