Women Police Chiefs: A Statistical Profile

Abstract

The goal of this study was to identify women chiefs of police, women sheriffs, and women in federal law enforcement at the rank of special agent in charge or above to establish a demographic profile of the women, to learn what types of agencies they led, and to discover whether there were any discernable pat-terns in their career paths to top leadership positions. Once the women were identified, each was asked to respond to an anonymous questionnaire com-posed of open- and closed-ended questions. Part of a larger study, this report analyzes responses solely from the chiefs of police and provides a unique “collective snapshot” of the women who have successfully reached chief executive office level in police departments throughout the United States.

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