Video: Women in Policing

• NCJ Number: 254604
• Author(s): Ivonne Roman
• Date Published: March 2020
• Length: 3 pages
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description; Interview

Annotation

In this 4-minute video, Captain Ivonne Roman of the Newark Police Department (New Jersey) describes how her participation in the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) LEADS Program has facilitated her research on women in policing, and she discusses some of her research findings, along with how LEADS has benefitted her career growth.

Abstract

She first notes that although police chiefs often converse in their peer groups about best practices in law enforcement by discussing what is being done in other agencies, they may not be familiar with or involved in the research that has evaluated and contributed to best practices. Captain Roman advises that through the NIJ LEADS Program, she was able to access research on women in policing. She was assisted in a literature review of relevant research and the gaps in such research. What she found in her study is that the number of women in policing has not increased in just over 25 years and is remaining at about 12 percent of law enforcement officers. Among the issues she identified are women's negative view of policing and the physical-fitness standards for entering police academies. The goal of her research was to develop a strategy in her own agency for facilitating and attracting women to policing as a career. In this video, she describes the features and effects of policies proposed and implemented to address the lack and distortion of women's knowledge of policing as a career for women, and how they can prepare to meet the physical requirements of police academies.