With female top cop, Oakland in vanguard of change
Anne Kirkpatrick, I’m rooting for you.
I hope that you, as Oakland’s first female police chief, can do something about the department, which has operated with chaos for too long. For starters, it would be nice to see the city rise from a how-notto-police punchline into a trendsetter.
And because there’s now a woman in charge, I feel we’re closer to seeing the incredible happen.
Some people who track police staffing statistics are convinced that more women on police forces would improve not only policing but community relations. And in Oakland, community relations need some fixing, given that after a decade of federal monitoring, Oakland police still show signs of racial disparities in enforcement. Some 15,407 vehicles were stopped between mid-November 2015 and midMay 2016, and blacks were behind the wheel in 57 percent of those stops, Latinos in 21 percent and whites in 11 percent.
Kathy Spillar, executive director for the Feminist Majority Foundation, which runs the National Center for Women and Policing, a program that promotes increasing the number of women in law enforcement, said communities are ill served by a dearth of female officers.
Spillar pointed to research that suggests women improve police response to violence
against women, reduce police brutality and lower the use of excessive force. Women, Spillar said, also strengthen community-policing reforms.
At her last job, in Chicago, Kirkpatrick led the Police Department’s reform efforts in the wake of a Justice Department probe resulting from the release of a police video in 2015 that showed a police officer shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014.
“I think it’s such a refreshing opportunity for Oakland to get past some of the problems that have occurred with police,” Spillar said. “It inspires more women to think about going into policing as a profession. That sends a very important signal.”
Police agencies rarely reflect the racial composition of communities, and they certainly don’t reflect gender. According to a May 2015 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2013, 1 in 8 police officers nationally was female. Women made up about 12 percent of police departments, but only 3 percent of local police chiefs were female. An analysis of the Oakland Police Department’s labormarket data posted in June revealed about 12 percent of patrol officers were female.
And according to the Police Chiefs Desk Reference, a 322-page guide for newly appointed police leaders published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, female officers have better oral communication skills and are more empathetic than men.
“As traditional gender roles continue to evolve, increasing the focus on female candidates will offer an abundant source of highly qualified and capable employees,” the desk reference stated. “Failure to do so will adversely impact agencies to reach their recruiting goals and serve their communities in the future.”
Mayor Libby Schaaf has promised to bring the force to 800 officers by the end of 2018, an increase from 2010’s low of 695 after layoffs. For community relations to improve, which police observers believe would lead to a reduction in crime, more women must be recruited to police forces.
And they must have more leadership roles.
A week ago at her introductory news conference, Kirkpatrick acknowledged her gender.
“So I am a leader who is cloaked as a woman, and I am grateful for being a woman, but I will be your leader as well,” she said.
Last summer, after scandals involving racist texts and emails and sexual misconduct, and after three police chiefs were fired or resigned in nine days, Schaaf criticized the Police Department’s “frat house” culture.
“It is more than symbolic,” Spillar, who mentioned that the frat house comment rippled nationally, said about Kirkpatrick’s hiring. “It is representing real change. It is sending a strong message to the rank and file. They have an opportunity to really set a new course.”
Now it’s up to Kirkpatrick to lead the way.