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Odd man out at the Women’s Seminar
What do the mid-year stats mean for American cops?
About ten minutes before I was scheduled to start my officer and career survival class at the annual conference held by the National Center for Women in Policing, I checked my email and discovered that we had lost our 14th female police officer this year. Deputy Sarah Haylett-Jones succumbed to injuries she sustained two days earlier when she was struck by another vehicle while directing traffic at a motorist assist outside of Bloomington, Indiana.
Haylett-Jones was 27 years old.
More than 220 women are listed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Wall, but only 9 women were killed prior to 1970. This year is shaping up to be one of our worst. From vehicular assaults to gunshots to traffic crashes to an edged weapon assault, the number of female law enforcement officers killed is on the rise. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, in 2001 eleven female officers were killed, twelve in 1998 and 1999, and a high of fifteen in 2002.
Of the 14 women killed this year, eight were killed in vehicle related incidents, three in gun battles, one agent was killed by exposure to toxins in a meth lab, one while aboard a commuter train that crashed, and a correctional officer was stabbed to death by an inmate with a shank after she was sexually assaulted. The average age of these women killed was 48 – the youngest was 24, the oldest was 59. Six were in their 50’s.
These female crime fighters were as diverse in their duties as their male counterparts; they were patrol officers, probation officers, correctional officers, federal agents, state troopers, detectives, ordinance officers, sheriff’s deputies and a state’s attorney’s investigator. They left at least 12 children and seven grandchildren without a mom or a grandmother, and one officer was 8 weeks pregnant at the time of her murder. They also left husbands, partners, fiancés, parents, grandparents, siblings, a K9 partner, and their brothers and sisters in blue to go on without them.
Compared to men, there is no disputing that women are relatively new to this profession and are still underrepresented. Women have been “mainstreamed” into patrol duties since the 1970s, although they were an integral part of the corrections profession a decade or more before that. Women are about 11 percent of patrol officers, 16 percent of federal agents, about 30 percent of correctional officers, but less than 5 percent of supervision and management, so most female cops are on the street or in the prisons, dealing with those most likely to cause them harm.
This is why equipment, training and mindset are so important.
Equipment
I’m a fairly small person but not unusually so. When I went to get outfitted for the academy (in 1980) I was issued men’s uniforms that had to be significantly tailored, a man’s belt that had to be cut off at the end, and a holster that rode so high up on my hip that when I drew my pistol my gun hand was in my armpit before my weapon actually cleared leather. I was measured for male body armor and I was issued a Smith & Wesson model 59 handgun. Never mind that if I held the gun properly it was impossible for my two and a half inch index finger to access the trigger.
My riot helmet was too big. My straight baton was too long. And never once did it occur to me to question any of this. I was just so happy to be a cop! I didn’t want to be singled out, and I just wanted to be “one of the guys” so I just dealt with what I was issued. I taped padding to the inside of my helmet, discovered that if I leaned left when I drew my gun it came out of the holster a little easier, and learned to aim high and to the left when I qualified with my model 59 so that my shots would hit center mass. It wasn’t until ten years ago, when my husband gave me a pistol that fit my hand (my 40th birthday present!) and I shot a 98 right out of the box that I began to study equipment issues.
Thankfully, today we have firearms made for virtually any hand size, and uniforms, holsters, belts, and body armor made specifically for women. Unfortunately, I still meet hundreds of women each year who don’t wear their body armor because it doesn’t fit properly, and they still have all the uniform and equipment issues I experienced nearly 30 years ago. Why? Because so many of us still don’t want to be singled out and are still just trying to be “one of the guys,” so we don’t make waves. We just deal with what we’re issued.
Training
Is gender-specific training a valid law enforcement tool? Aren’t we all alike? We do the same job, shouldn’t we train the same? I went through my own training file this weekend and found certificates for several classes I had attended in the very early 80s. “Self Defense for Female Police Officers” and “Management of Stress and Physical Well Being for Female Officers” are two that stand out for me.
The first was taught by a man, the second by a psychologist who had no law enforcement affiliation. I remember feeling insulted that I was being sent to these “girl” classes, and I didn’t like the message I thought I was being sent: “Women are weaker and more stressed out and need ‘special’ classes.”
It wasn’t until I became a trainer that I understood what these trainers were trying to do, and I started doing it myself. One of my first classes was called “Career Survival for Women Officers,” which I taught with a male partner (also a cop) for many years; we traveled around the Chicago area teaching at local police agencies. Every time we held class, which we did several times a year, on the first break my poor partner would get accosted in the men’s room by the male cops from the host agency. They’d practically pin him up against the wall and ask, “Hey! What are they talking about in there?!” The perception was we were facilitating a “man-bashing” session and teaching women how to sue their agencies for discrimination. What we were actually doing was teaching them how to deal with stress and frustration; how to make themselves more promotable, how to adjust their attitudes and how to take responsibility for their own careers. We were teaching them things all cops needed to know, but we were doing it in a socially safe environment where they could speak freely, ask questions without fear of appearing weak, and network with other female cops from the same area. This course provided the groundwork for the Calibre Press “Street Survival for Women” seminar.
Mindset
It’s no secret that men and women are different, but both sexes need to have a winning attitude to be successful cops. As I got more involved in gender-specific training and research, I learned that there are scientific reasons why men and women often think differently, react differently, and communicate differently. As a female cop, if you don’t understand these differences, you risk becoming mired in negativity, which can lead to frustration, complacency, a lack of confidence, and ultimately, a poor survival mindset. And if you are someone who trains, supervises, or manages female cops and you understand these differences, you stand a better chance of providing your male and female officers with the leadership, the training, and the workplace culture that is going to send them out there everyday with an “I Will Win” mentality.
Go to the Officer Down Memorial Page and read the stories of these 14 women and their 98 brothers who’s names will be added to the wall next year.
As always, honor them, learn from their sacrifice, and remember that law enforcement is a brotherhood, we are brothers and sisters in this profession, and we need to train, to seek out the right gear, to arm ourselves well, to be vigilant and to “keep fighting no matter what,” so that we never put another name, male or female, on the wall.
