More work remains to improve law enforcement culture

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1. (Seattle) SPD Is Having Trouble Retaining Women Officers

https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/02/09/79378658/spd-is-having-trouble-retaining-women-officers

SPD Is Having Trouble Retaining Women Officers

A List of Lawsuits and Complaints May Contain Some Clues to This Mystery

JUSTIN WARD
Feb 9, 2024

When Mayor Bruce Harrell took office, he summarized his plan for transforming the Seattle Police Department by saying it was all about hiring “the right number and the right kind of officer.” That sound bite, repeated often, reflects a persistent delusion among liberal police reformers that reduces policing’s ills to a matter of mere personnel. According to this view, the path to reform entails weeding out the “bad apples” and recruiting a diverse new generation of cops with a “guardian mindset” and a community-centered outlook.

During the protests over the murder of George Floyd, we heard renewed calls to hire more women officers, who police reformers claim are less likely to use excessive force and more likely to de-escalate. SPD subsequently signed on to the 30 by 30 Pledge, vowing to take steps to increase its proportion of women officers to 30 percent by 2030. It isn’t going so well.

Women officers feature prominently in SPD’s recruiting materials and make up 40% of the “Meet Our Officers” profiles on the department’s webpage, but they account for only 14.4% of sworn officers, just above the national average.

The issue appears to be retention, not recruitment. From 2017 to 2022, women comprised 17% of recruits annually on average, yet the proportion of women officers fell by 1 percentage point during that period.

…more… long read…numerous law suit details …