Female attrition from the police profession

• Pages: 375-389
• Published date: 02 April 2020
• Date: 02 April 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-09-2019-0147
• Author: Andreea I. Alecu,Silje Bringsrud Fekjær
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Policing,Criminal justice,Juvenile/youth crime,Police studies,Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Criminology & criminal justice

Female attrition from the

police profession

Andreea I. Alecu and Silje Bringsrud Fekjær

Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

Abstract

Purpose –Do female police recruits drop out of police education and/or leave the profession more often than

men, and has this changed over time? Can gender differences be explained by the background characteristics

and family obligations of the recruits?

Design/methodology/approach –Thispaper employs administrative registry data covering all individuals

admitted to the police academy (1995–2010, N56570) and all academy recruits employed in the Norwegian

police (1992–2014, N57301). The paper analyses the data using discrete-time logistic regression and

coarsened exact matching.

Findings –The levels of dropout and attrition are generally low. However, female recruits have a somewhat

greater tendency both to drop out of education and to leave the force. The gender differences are quite stable,

although the percentage of female recruits has risen sharply. Family obligations do not seem to explain female

attrition from the police force.

Research limitations/implications –Because women tend to leave the police more often than men, further

research is suggested in investigating female police recruits’experiences. However, the relatively low level of

dropout and limited gender differences also provide a reason to question whether stories of the police as a

male-dominated profession not adapted to women are valid across time and in different settings.

Originality/value –This study provides exhaustive and detailed longitudinal data not previously available

in studies of police careers. This study also tracks attrition in a period that has involved both increased

numerical representation of women and changes in police culture, while accounting for other observable

differences between male and female police officers. Contrary to common explanations, there is limited

importance of family obligations and altered gender composition.

Keywords Dropout, Education, Gender, Police attrition, Female officers, Administrative register data

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

During recent decades, considerable effort has been invested in recruiting female police

officers (Jordan et al., 2009;Prenzler and Sinclair, 2013). Reasons for increasing the share of

female officers include ensuring gender equity and providing more opportunities for women.

Some argue that female officers are important to assure access to female officers for female

victims of crime and to reduce the levels of police complaints and misconduct. These

arguments can be criticized for gender essentialism, as they automatically assume that

female officers are a different kind of police officer (Prenzler and Sinclair, 2013). Nevertheless,

recruiting more female officers will have a limited effect if many of them dropout of the

academy or exit the profession after a short time. Hence, investigating how and why female

police officers leave the police is important.

The topic of this paper is the careers of female police officers. We ask the following

research questions: First, do female police recruits more often drop out from police education

and/or do they more often leave the profession? Second, to what extent can gender differences

in dropout and attrition be explained by the background characteristics and family

responsibilities of the recruits? Third, have gender differences in dropout and attrition

changed over time as the proportion of female officers has increased?

Female

attrition from

the police

375

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and their colleagues at the Centre for the

Study of Professions for their comments to earlier versions of this article. Any errors or omissions are the

responsibility of the authors.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1363-951X.htm

Received 3 September 2019

Revised 19 December 2019

Accepted 23 December 2019

Policing: An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 2, 2020

pp. 375-389

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1363-951X

DOI 10.1108/PIJPSM-09-2019-0147