Influence of Gender on Perceptions of Barriers to a Police Patrol Career

• DOI: 10.1177/1098611120907870
• Author: Cara E. Rabe-Hemp,Michael T. Rossler,Meghan Peuterbaugh,Charles Scheer
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Influence of Gender

on Perceptions of

Barriers to a Police

Patrol Career

Michael T. Rossler

1

,

Cara E. Rabe-Hemp

2

,

Meghan Peuterbaugh

1

, and

Charles Scheer

3

Abstract

Policing as an institution has been under immense pressure to increase the repre-

sentation of women as police patrol officers. As the representation of women in

policing has plateaued, increasing research has focused on barriers to women enter-

ing patrol work but has not examined the salience of these barriers with respect to

males or reliably determined which barriers are most influential to desire to enter a

police patrol career prior to employment. Drawing upon survey responses from

more than 640 students enrolled in criminal justice courses across five universities

(i.e., University of Southern Mississippi, Illinois State University, University of

Massachusetts-Lowell, Indiana University-Purdue University Indiana, and Missouri

State University), the current inquiry examines the degree to which female and

male students differ in their perceptions of barriers to entering a patrol career

frequently listed in the literature. The findings indicate that female students view

many of these obstacles differently than male students and that these perceptions

influence interest in patrol careers.

1

Department of Criminal Justice Sciences, Illinois State University

2

College of Applied Science and Technology, Illinois State University

3

School of Criminal Justice, Forensic Science, and Security, The University of Southern Mississippi

Corresponding Author:

Michael T. Rossler, Department of Criminal Justice Sciences, Illinois State University, Campus Box 5250,

Normal, IL 61790, USA.

Email: mtrossl@ilstu.edu

Police Quarterly

2020, Vol. 23(3) 368–395

!The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1098611120907870

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Keywords

gender, recruitment, careers, patrol, barriers

In 1978, Catherine Milton (1978), a respected police scholar, predicted that

“within a few decades 50 percent of all police officers will be women”

(p. 185). She was not alone in her prediction. Many scholars predicted that

the numeric representation of women in policing would continue to increase

(Martin, 1980; Pike, 1985). When examining the historical progression of female

representation in policing, the reason for Milton’s prediction becomes appar-

ent—the percent of women in the sworn police ranks almost tripled from 1971

to 1980 and then doubled again by 2000 (Uniform Crime Reporting, 1972, 1981,

1991, 2001, 2010; Hickman & Reaves, 2006; Reaves, 2010; Reaves & Goldberg,

1999; Reaves & Hickman, 2004).Forty years after Milton’s prediction, however,

instead of showing a continued climb, the progress that women were making in

policing has stalled.

The possible explanations for the stalled growth of women in policing pri-

marily focus on barriers to police recruitment and retention. Much of this

research has pointed to disparate recruitment and hiring processes, such as

physical fitness tests, academy and field training experiences, and discriminatory

or outdated hiring practices (Chappell & Lanza-Kaduce, 2010; Cordner &

Cordner, 2011; Kringen, 2014; Prokos & Padavic, 2002; Reaves, 2015;

Schuck, 2014), along with rescinding or expiring consent decrees and other

affirmative action initiatives that were more common in the 1970–1990s

(Martin, 1991; Sass & Troyer, 1999; Sklansky, 2006). Alternatively,

another explanation is that women may simply not be interested in police

employment (Yim, 2009) or have been socialized to perceive themselves as less

qualified for male-dominated careers (Lawless & Fox, 2005; Yim, 2009). Prior

research indicates that socialization experiences orient women toward careers in

which they can pursue “communal” or helping goals and avoid conflict

(Raganella & White, 2004; Schneider et al., 2016). The perception of policing

as male-dominated and lacking in female role models are also likely influences

on female interest in police employment (Austin & Hummer, 1999; Campbell &

Wolbrecht, 2006; National Center for Women and Policing, 2002).

Recent research suggests that the increased representation of women in polic-

ing impacts police organizations positively (Barnes et al., 2018; Schuck, 2018).

For example, Barnes et al. (2018) found that citizens believed that

increasing women’s participation in policing would reduce police corruption

due to the perception of women as outsiders to policing and more

cautious than male officers. In addition, Schuck (2018) reported that the

Rossler et al. 369