The Future of Law Enforcement: How Women Can Change the Game
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The prompt for this round of the FEDforum is: What is the issue most important to your organization? This week, hear from the Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE).
Today, as a profession, we face what seems like insurmountable challenges. Society as a whole is also in upheaval. Accusations fly against each other without thought and the police are often caught in the middle. There is nothing new in that. The police have always been used to solve problems quickly. The problem with this is that police solve problems by making arrests. It is basically what we do and really the only alternative. As a citizen you can do A, or B, you go to jail. Society in the United States decided it was faster and easier to use the police to take care of the mentally ill, and the homeless, and oversee the activities of children in schools. All this amounts to using a baseball bat instead of the fly swatter. It does the job, but holy cow, it really does damage in the process.
Should we be used to solve these societal problems? Probably not, but that is where we are today. It doesn’t matter what side of the debate you are on. Too much force, racial bias, bad cops, etc. What matters is as a profession what are we going to do about it? It doesn’t matter that the vast majority of law enforcement are good, or there are only a few bad apples. What matters is there are just enough. There are just enough bad incidents to negate all the good things we do. Humans tend to remember all the bad and need to be reminded of the good.
Does law enforcement need to change? Yes, it does, because society is changing. We may be the last to change but we will change. This brings us to how women can help change the future of law enforcement. How we do that? By bringing with us all that makes us different and using it to change law enforcement. Women bring a different perspective and problem-solving techniques to the profession. Not better, just different, and it is that difference that will allow us to find better solutions to the problems we have been tasked to solve.
Research tells us women perform all the tasks of law enforcement equally as well as their male counterparts; women just perform those tasks differently and it is that difference that helps make law enforcement more successful in dealing with communities. More women will not dumb down the profession, just as increasing racial and ethnic diversity won’t dumb down the standards. However, it will change the profession, and, just as there was a concerted push towards professionalizing and educating our law enforcement officers in the 60’s and 70’s, we are going to go through another change.
What will we look like in the future? No one knows. However, bringing more diversity of thought and perspective to the room where our futures will be planned will help with choosing a direction that works – and guess what? This is not an impossible feat – it can work – and better yet, it can be implemented.
I challenge you to give it a try and see what happens.
This column from Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE) is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDagent audience.
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