Over the last year, America has finally begun to acknowledge that it has a police brutality problem. The conversation about solutions has focused on body cameras, better training or stricter use-of-force policies, along with a need for community engagement. But a critical idea is being overlooked: increasing the numbers of women in police ranks.
As David Couper, the former chief of police in Madison, Wis., recently wrote:
Women in policing make a difference — a big difference — they make for a better police department. Haven’t you wondered why women police are not the ones involved in recent officer involved shootings? After all, they are usually smaller, somewhat weaker in physical strength, and yet they don’t appear to shoot suspects as often.
In fact, over the last 40 years, studies have shown that female officers are less authoritarian in their approach to policing, less reliant on physical force and are more effective communicators. Most importantly, female officers are better at defusing potentially violent confrontations before those encounters turn deadly. – READ MORE
