Women in State Law Enforcement: An Exploratory Trend Analysis

• DOI: 10.1177/02750740221088315
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Women in State Law Enforcement: An

Exploratory Trend Analysis

Helen H. Yu

1

and Shilpa Viswanath

2

Abstract

Gender diversity in policing has never been more important than it is today. However, women in state law enforcement are

the least noticeable and most underrepresented of all women in policing. Using data from the Law Enforcement Management

and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) surveys, this study examines gender diversity across the 49 primary state law enforce-

ment agencies in the United States between 2000 and 2016. Although representation varies broadly across the states, the

findings are mostly negative and suggest that women in state law enforcement have remained stagnant over the past two

decades with very little improvement. This is important because scholarship must continue to bring attention to the under-

representation of women in law enforcement, regardless of intergovernmental level, and monitor its progress.

Keywords

women, state law enforcement, representative bureaucracy, passive representation

Introduction

Gender diversity in policing has never been more important

than it is today. For example, in the Final Report of the

President’sTask Force on 21st Century Policing (2015),

one of the key recommendations for building trust and legit-

imacy between police and the communities they serve is “to

create a workforce that contains a broad range of diversity

including race, gender, and cultural background to improve

understanding and effectiveness in dealing with all communi-

ties”(p. 15). Although Trump explicitly broke from Obama’s

reform initiatives, the blueprint remains and continues to be

followed by many law enforcement agencies, as well as the

Biden administration. In addition, the current 30 ×30

Initiative (2021)—a coalition of police leaders, researchers,

and professional law enforcement associations—are chal-

lenging police departments and other law enforcement agen-

cies to sign a pledge (i.e., #30 ×30Pledge) to recruit classes

of at least 30% women by 2030 and agree to report on their

efforts to identify and address obstacles that women face in

police recruitment and throughout their careers.

1

However, nearly all the scholarship on gender and polic-

ing have focused on female officers working in municipal

police departments, county sheriffs’offices, and most

recently federal law enforcement. A review of the literature

found only five articles that focused specifically on state

law enforcement (e.g., Bowman et al., 2006; Prussel &

Lonsway, 2001; Schaible & Sheffield, 2012; Whetstone

et al., 2006; White et al., 2018). While there is cause to

focus on local and federal law enforcement—women repre-

sent 12.3% of all full-time police officers in 12,261 local

police departments, 13.6% of all deputies in 3,012 sheriffs’

offices, and 13.7% of all sworn officers in 83 federal law

enforcement agencies (Brooks, 2019a, 2019b; Hyland &

Davis, 2019)—women in state law enforcement are the

most underrepresented in policing. To illustrate, according

to the findings from the present study, women account for

just 6.6% of all state officers in 49 primary state law enforce-

ment agencies (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020).

The stark difference between state and other intergovern-

mental levels of policing is worrisome, especially since

women are grossly underrepresented to begin with.

However, women in state law enforcement are also the

least noticeable of all women in policing, apparent by the

lack of research on women and state law enforcement. To

illustrate, the Bureau of Justice Statistics—the agency

responsible for compiling statistics on police personnel—

has not prepared a comprehensive census report, capturing

key demographic and organizational variables, on state law

enforcement in over 10 years (Langston, 2010; Reaves,

2012). This is important because excluding statistics on

women in state law enforcement—the least represented

across all levels of law enforcement—masks the magnitude

of women’s continued difficulties integrating into masculine

1

University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

2

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Helen H. Yu, Public Administration, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2424

Maile Way, Saunders Hall 631, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.

Email: helenyu@hawaii.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2022, Vol. 52(4) 268–279

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740221088315

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