The Status of Women in Policing , examines the gains and gaps in the numbers of women in policing and the major barriers keeping women from increasing their numbers in law enforcement. As detailed in the report, the barriers keeping women from entering law enforcement include biased entry tests and recruitment policies that unfairly favor men over women. Study after study shows that women officers are not as likely as their male counterparts to be involved in the use of excessive force. The gains for women in policing are so slow that, at the current rate of growth, women will never reach equal representation or gender balance in law enforcement agencies.
State agencies trail local agencies by a wide margin.
Eight out of the 10 departments with the largest percentage of women in sworn officer positions are under or have recently been under consent decrees to hire women or minorities. The accompanying table ranks all of the 100 agencies in the report from the highest to lowest percentage of sworn women law enforcement officers.