What Works

A succinct and clear introduction to the evidence behind 30×30, our mission, and how policing agencies are partnering with us to advance women in policing.

Decades of work from experts on policing, workplace equity, and organizational efficacy has shown that gender diversity greatly benefits organizations. This guide aggregates research on the “why” behind advancing women in policing, as well as the “how.”

30×30 is profiling women who have made substantial contributions both to the profession of law enforcement and the advancement of women within it.  This profile in courage explores the life and career of Margie Moore, former ATF executive and co-founder of Women in Federal Law Enforcement.

We have examined more than 100 pieces of social scientific literature that cover existing practices in policing, 25 of which specifically address existing barriers and potential avenues to recruit and assess potential women officers more effectively. This summary synthesizes their findings and provides recommended courses of action from the 30×30 Pledge.

Explicit gender discrimination, a lack of institutional support, and a male-dominated culture in police departments all contribute to why women officers leave departments—and perpetuate the feedback loop of gender disparities in the police force. This paper analyzes these findings and explores ways to address the structural and cultural inequities that lead to the gender gap in the police force.

Women officers when promoted to positions of power, often positively influence policy and culture to result in better outcomes for community members, and public safety as a whole. Yet despite these benefits, women are severely under-represented in policing leadership, and similar issues that prevent women officers from advancing their careers appear across agencies. We’ll discuss the most common barriers and their solutions here.

Developed by the National Center for Women & Policing, this manual is designed to help agencies examine their policies and procedures and to identify and remove obstacles to hiring and retaining sworn and civilian women employees at all levels within the organization. The guide also provides a list of resources for agencies to use when planning or implementing changes to their current policies and procedures.

Published by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the U.S. Department of Justice, this guide provides an overview of policy components and promising practices that can improve the experience of officers and their families in law enforcement.

This is a guidebook published by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) that outlines the current resources for law enforcement agencies about how to promote a diverse workforce through various staffing mechanisms.

The Office of the Inspector General for the City of Chicago released an evaluation of the demographic impacts of the Chicago Police Department’s hiring practices. The article explores the demographic differences in attrition rates of officers during the hiring process and if there is a certain stage within the process that may have an impact on the demographic composition of the officer candidate pool.

The Research Triangle Institute released a report on how job descriptions can play a key role in socializing potential applicants to law enforcement agency culture and how it relates to gender inclusivity.

Captain Julie Scribner from the Vermont State Police discusses how the agency worked to ensure safe spaces for nursing mothers when returning to the work place. (A transcript of this conversation is available via the “Download Resource” bottom below.)

Officer Terry Cherry from the Charleston Police Department discusses how to use a data-driven approach to drive, assess, and refine recruitment to reach more diverse applicants.  (A transcript of this conversation is available via the “Download Resource” bottom below.)

“We are the 28” is an initiative launched by the Madison Police Department in January 2020 to highlight the nationally significant number of women MPD commissioned personnel (28% of the department!). This video is an example of a recruitment campaign that centers intersectionality in its approach.

University of Colorado Police Department:

This document provides key takeaways by Carmen Best, Sylvia Moir, Kathleen O’Toole, and Sue Rahr from the 30×30 March Webinar: Female Trailblazers. It highlights ways individual officers, agencies, and leaders can improve in various areas including career development and gender-based challenges.

Agencies are required to report every six months across two years on the successes and challenges of implementing the 30×30 Pledge.

This document lists the reporting questions for the 6, 12, 18, and 24-month 30×30 agency reporting periods.

This Excel spreadsheet template, created by the Crime and Justice Institute, is a tool to assist agencies in collecting and organizing demographic data required for reporting. We strongly encourage pledged agencies to utilize this template, not only for 30×30 reporting, but to also internally track their progress.

We have specific resources to support agencies in fulfilling the pledge requirements related to surveys and focus groups. This is the survey that we distributed through the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  We’re encouraging agencies to pull from this version and to administer using publicly available platforms like Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Agencies are encouraged to tailor the template to the questions most relevant to them. We hosted a webinar exploring early results from agencies who already administered the survey. 

There is no one universal experience for women in law enforcement, each woman’s individual intersection of identities defines her personal experience. This survey will help SPD to better identify and address the obstacles that women face in recruitment and throughout their careers.

Focus groups are a way for agencies to create a dedicated space and time for employees to share their experiences, and can generate a wealth of information to help identify areas for improving the experiences of women officers. This toolkit, developed by Dr. Natalie Todak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham is designed to help agencies carry out their own in-house focus groups. We also held a webinar on leading focus groups.

Alice White, featured in the Women in Blue documentary, explores the experiences of women in the Minneapolis Police Department. At the time, she was a sergeant, navigating complex challenges and offering deep reflections on the role of police in advancing community safety. White now serves as an Assistant Chief with the Golden Valley, MN, Police Department. Ganesha Martin, Mo McGough, and Tanya Meisenholder host a roundtable with Assistant Chief White to discuss her experiences and evolution as a police leader.

The Promising strategies for implementing the 30×30 Pledge: Lessons learned from successful efforts at USPIS webinar features implementation strategies from United States Postal Inspection Service Attorney Amber Jordan. Amber is her agency’s 30×30 liaison and President of the Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE) Inc. Executive Committee. Amber has spearheaded some incredible progress at USPIS, and will share her insights on gaining traction, creating coalitions, and advancing change. Amber will share honest insights about challenges and how she navigated them, as well as provide a look into USPIS’ plans for future progress.

We were thrilled to have Assistant Chief Gina V. Hawkins on our Ask Me Anything series! Assistant Chief Deputy Gina V. Hawkins oversees Uniformed Operations, Criminal Investigations, Training, and Internal Affairs for the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office. From 1988 to 2017, Hawkins served with the City of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, and Clayton County Police Departments. In 2017, she was appointed Chief of Police for the City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, making her the first female, first African American, first Hispanic Police Chief in Fayetteville history. She is the President of the National Association of Women in Law Enforcement, Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Committee, and a member of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange, Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, and National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives

This webinar featured Mesa, AZ Police Department’s Community Services Bureau Chief, Ed Wessing. He discussed the recently implemented pre-hire program for new police officers, designed to integrate them into the agency’s inclusive culture and enhance their mental and physical preparedness for the academy. Thanks to this program, the attrition rate among police officer academy recruits has decreased, resulting in more successful graduates.

30×30 April Webinar with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) – Breaking Barriers and Building a Future – April 18 at 3p ET. The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) Executive Search Team will offer actionable steps on how to get the most out of your career, whether it’s being the best you can be in your current position or becoming a police chief.  Charlotte Lansinger, Rebecca Neuburger and Antoinette Tull conduct executive searches for police chiefs around the country and provide training to help promote future leaders in policing.  They will share strategies on advancing your career, resume writing and preparing for job interviews. Two of PERF’s publications related to this webinar are Command Performance: A Career Guide for Police Executives and Women in Police.

Law enforcement is evolving to meet today’s public safety challenges, and compassion is emerging as a key to greater inclusion and performance. A growing body of research and leading experts indicate prioritizing compassion is critical to recruitment, retention and resilience among officers. According to workplace experience firm Great Place to Work, women are 2.5 times more likely than men to want their workplace to be compassionate. Strengthening Police Cultures with Compassion is an interactive webinar co-facilitated by Tanya Meisenholder, who oversees the 30×30 Initiative, and members of Project Compassion, a group of experts in law enforcement, workplace culture and trauma-informed practices. Participants in the webinar will: be re-introduced to compassion as a powerful tool for police officers to elevate wellbeing, performance, and resilience; hear perspectives and insights on ways to strengthen compassion, leadership effectiveness, and departmental impact from the former head of the FBI National Academy; learn how compassion can help build bridges between officers, departments, and communities.

Public Personnel Management plays a vital role in exploring key issues in public human resource management, including controversial developments. A recent example is the attempted assassination of former President Trump (July 13, 2024) and the subsequent resignation of U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, sparking debates about women’s roles in federal law enforcement. Despite decades of research supporting women’s contributions in this field, ongoing challenges highlight the need for continued focus on gender and leadership, advancing both knowledge and professional practice.

In an effort to reduce gender disparities in policing and move beyond the current legitimacy crisis faced by the profession, there has been a renewed focus on increasing the recruitment and retention of female police officers. Beyond understanding why current female officers have remained in the field, it is important to understand why some have left the profession altogether. The current study employs deductive and inductive coding of a mixed-methods self-report survey from 154 current and former female officers in the Dallas Police Department (DPD). We sought to examine the advice that current and former female police officers would give to other women who might want to enter or promote within policing.

Despite decades of workplace interventions, often focussed on increasing women police numbers, women continue to be under-represented in policing. Understanding the experiences of women once they have entered policing has been an area of ongoing interest. Examination of the experiences of women police is often undertaken with reference to its masculinized culture. Stemming from these discussions, sexual harassment remains a persistent concern across many police agencies. This study involves 491 women police employed in one large Australian, state police organization. Derived from the study findings, the concepts of psychological contract breach (PCB) and embitterment, two factors that have been rarely studied in policing, are critical to understanding the relationship between sexual harassment and psychological distress.

The purpose of the research was to examine challenges women face in policing that may serve as barriers to the recruitment of other women; identifying challenges is crucial for developing strategies that attract women to the profession.

The purpose of the research was to examine whether policewomen have carved out their place and developed a sense of belonging in the profession, or whether they are faced with disrespect, self-doubt, and pressure to adopt constructed gender roles.

The paper explores the prevalence of mentorship opportunities for women police officers, the nature of mentorship relationships, and their perceived effect on women’s career advancement. Design/methodology/approach – Data consist of online surveys (N 5 924) with women police officers working in the United States. A content analysis of emergent themes from one open ended survey question was conducted.

While women have made strides on patrol in many agencies, elite units have not witnessed the same progress. In this study, we interviewed 32 policewomen from across the United States who defied the odds and cultural perceptions of “appropriate” roles for women by earning positions on elite specialty units (i.e., SWAT, K9, motorcycles, and bomb units). Most were the only women on their units and half were the first in their agencies’ histories to enter that space. Participants’ descriptions of department, community, and team members’ responses to their selection are analyzed. Our focus on women who have broken the most formidable gender barriers in law enforcement allows us to better understand the continued exclusion of women and offer recommendations for increasing gender diversity throughout policing.

Women are significantly underrepresented among police supervisors, middle managers, and leaders in the United States. To investigate this problem, the current study examines challenges faced by women officers as they pursue promotions. Narrative data from 226 women who earned promotions in U.S. policing are analyzed using a content analysis of responses to an open-ended survey question. Emergent themes reflected gender bias within the promotions process and, more broadly, in the organizational culture of participants’ agencies that impact promotions. Findings support the characterization of policing as a gendered occupation with a culture that views and supports men as more competent leaders.

Findings in this report are based on the 2020 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Conducted periodically since 1987, the LEMAS survey collects data on a range of topics from a nationally representative sample of general-purpose state and local law enforcement agencies. (See Methodology.) General-purpose law enforcement agencies include municipal, county, and regional police departments; most sheriffs’ offices; and primary state and highway patrol agencies. They are distinct from special-purpose agencies, sheriffs’ offices with jail and court duties only, and federal law enforcement agencies. Full-time sworn officers are those with general arrest powers. Employees who are regularly scheduled to work 35 or more hours per week are considered full-time.

Findings in this report are from the 2020 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Conducted periodically since 1987, the LEMAS survey collects data on a range of topics from a nationally representative sample of general-purpose state and local law enforcement agencies. (See Methodology.) General-purpose law enforcement agencies include municipal, county, and regional police departments; most sheriffs offices; and primary state and highway patrol agencies. They are distinct from special-purpose agencies, sheriffs offices with jail and court duties only, and federal law enforcement agencies. Full-time sworn officers are those with general arrest powers. Employees who are regularly scheduled to work 35 or more hours per week are considered full-time.

This report presents findings from the 2022 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies (CLETA). Conducted periodically beginning in 2002, CLETA collects information from training academies that are responsible for administering mandatory basic training to newly appointed or elected law enforcement officers on recruits, staff, training curricula, equipment, and facilities. These academies are operated by state, regional, county, and municipal agencies and by universities, colleges, and technical schools. Academies that provide only in-service training are excluded from CLETA. 

Findings in this report are based on the 2021 Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies (SCLEA) conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The SCLEA has been conducted four times beginning with the 1994–1995 academic year and collects data on agency staffing, operations, budget, policies, responsibilities, training, and equipment. The SCLEA includes campus law enforcement agencies serving both institutions funded publicly and privately.

This report focuses on the characteristics of campus law enforcement agencies serving 4-year institutions with a full-time student enrollment of 1,000 or more students. 

 Findings in this report are from the 2020 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (CFLEO), which the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has conducted periodically since 1993. The 2020 CFLEO collected data on 94 agencies, including 44 Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs), which provide oversight of federal agencies and their activities. The census excluded the U.S. Armed Forces, officers stationed overseas, and agencies with confidentiality restrictions, such as the Federal Air Marshal Service.