Gender Diversity in Policing

Voiceover

00:00

Welcome to The Beat—a podcast series from the COPS Office at the Department of Justice. Featuring 

interviews with experts from a varied field of disciplines, The Beat provides law enforcement with the 

latest developments and trending topics in community policing.

Jennifer Donelan

00:16

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us on The Beat. I'm your host, Jennifer Donelan. And today we 

have the honor of being joined by Dr. Elsie Scott. She is the founding director of the Ronald W. Walters 

Leadership and Public Policy Center at Howard University, in the nation’s capital. And we are here at 

Howard University with Dr. Scott because they are hosting a forum, Engaging College Students in 21st 

Century Law Enforcement. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Elsie Scott

00:46

Thank you for having me.

Jennifer

00:47

Talk about your interests and the background in-in your interest in diversity and law enforcement andand women uh, gender diversity in-in law enforcement.

Scott

00:55

I had an academic background in law enforcement. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the politics of 

the police. I'm a political scientist and as result of that, a lot of people came knocking on my door as an 

expert, somebody had conducted research on law enforcement in the black community especially. And 

it wasn't till I went to the New York Police Department as the Deputy Commissioner of Training that I 

really got involved in women's issues because there were so many issues that the women were facing in 

New York Police Department and they needed a champion. And because I had the position of Deputy 

Commissioner, I reported directly to the Police Commissioner, they knew that I had an opportunity to 

have the Police Commissioner's ear. And when Commissioner Bratton came there as Police 

Commissioner it was at a time when women were in the news and that was an opportunity to make a 

name for himself around women's issues so he appointed me, sorta be in charge of dealing with 

women's issues and he had me to create a work plan of what were the problems. He said "I'm tired of 

hearing all these problems. Come up with the problems and also bring me some solutions." And so 
we’re able to get a lot of changes for women as a result of putting together a cross department uh, 

taskforce on women.

Jennifer

02:08

Why did you decide to-to go the law enforcement route to-to focus your studies on political science and 

law enforcement and then on from there?

Scott

02:16

I chose law enforcement as a source of study because I was concerned about the problems between the 

police and the black community. So I came in from an advocate perspective and a researcher. Never 

looking to go inside of a police department. Some of my mentors who were police officers convinced me 

that I could have more impact if I came inside of a police department.

Jennifer

02:41

Change from within.

Scott

02:42

Yes.

Jennifer

02:44

Let's fast forward to the Ronald W. Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center of which you are the 

director, here at Howard University. What is the conversation surrounding in terms of women in law 

enforcement?

Scott

02:58

I think there's a lot of curiosity as we did focus groups, some students felt like women make better 

police officers because they had had fewer problems from women when they've had encounters with 

the police, they felt like women were more empathetic. And so we decided to "Let's pull this out and 

look a little bit deeper at some of the women's issues." So we have here at Howard students haven't 

seen except for Catherine Lenier, they have not seen women police chiefs, they haven't seen black 

women chiefs of police so we've been able to bring them to the campus and have them to have 

dialogue. But underneath that, we talked about particular problems that women face once they become 

police officers, in terms of discrimination and sexual harassment and some of those issues. But the 
police officers have also been able to talk about what are the good things about the job, also you take 

the bitter with the sweet and decide what's best for you.

Jennifer

03:53

How have you seen the challenges change? Have things gotten better? Have they stayed the same? Or 

have they just changed?

Scott

03:58

They have definitely gotten better for women. For one thing, there are more women inside police 

departments so they have more of a force to fight whereas when there was only one or two, then she 

often had to just suffer and many of them left the department because they were not happy. But now 

you have more women, you have more women in leadership positions, to be in a position to uh, to 

mentor and to train and to make certain they get their appropriate experiences to move up through the 

ranks. So I think that's the good thing but we've also talked about some of the problems that still exist, 

especially women with children. And how law enforcement really is not flexible enough to really allow 

you to be good mothers often and so it takes a whole community. Many of the women in the session 

today have talked about their mother's moving in with them, their mother-in-law's moving in with them. 

Their husband's having a job where he has an opportunity to help. So there—there are still these 

struggles uh, for women who want to be police officers, who want to move up the ranks but we've seen 

some examples today of women who've been able to conquer that.

Jennifer

05:04

What do you see as a way forward for increasing gender diversity in law enforcement?

Scott

05:10

Well I think we will see more gender diversity because as women have roles throughout society that no 

longer is there this whole thing ... back in the 70s, they felt like a woman couldn't even drive a patrol car 

and they felt like women couldn't be police officers because of their weight or their height and they 

used to have to jump over wall and that was one of the things we looked at in New York. We teach 

officers not to go over walls because your head can get blown off so why is that a measure as to 

whether you can flunk the academy?

Jennifer

05:41

Good point.
Scott

05:42

And that's where more women were flunking because they couldn't get over that wall. And so now that 

we've gotten rid of some of the impediments that kept women from succeeding, I think we'll have uh, 

more progress and as you get more women chiefs of police, who will be empathetic and who will 

provide the leadership and role models for the young people that are interested.

Jennifer

06:00

Well I definitely applaud the female police chiefs who've flown in from across the country to stand here 

and inspire the young people at Howard University and I applaud your efforts in engaging the young 

community and getting them to talk. And creating that dialogue and conversation between law 

enforcement and our young, it's so critical.

Scott

06:18

Right.

Jennifer

06:19

We won't get anything done without it.

Scott

06:21

Absolutely.

Jennifer

06:22

Are there any other resources that come to mind on this particular issue of gender diversity or the topics 

that you're currently addressing at the Ronald W. Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center?

Scott

6:32

Well, NOBLE, National Organization Black Law Enforcement Executives. Many of the women who spoke 

here today, the black women, talked about that's how they got the courage to go forth, how they 

learned about certain positions because they came to a NOBLE conference and they met women. And 

these women have become their-their support group and uh, and then they talk about IACP, the 

International Association of Chiefs of Police. They have a women's section, so I think a lot of it is getting 

to know people, going to professional conferences and networking.
Jennifer

07:05

If people want to contact you to discuss more of this topic uh, how would you prefer to be contacted?

Scott

07:11

Well I think one of the best ways is to contact me by email and that email address is elsie. E-L-S-I-E-dotscott@howard-dot-E-D-U. And we have a webpage, the Ron Walters Center at Howard University, they 

can Google that and they can go on our website to learn more about what we're doing.

Jennifer

07:30

All right, well Dr. Elsie Scott, we don't want to hold you any longer but we cannot thank you enough for 

the valuable time that you have spent with us. Thank you audience for joining us on The Beat. 

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7:39

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Voiceover: Disclaimer

08:39

The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official 

position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, 

products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department 

of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.