CONSIDER GENDER DIFFERENCES IN POLICE RECRUITING.

Byline: Sheldon Kay Local View

SUPERVISOR Zev Yaroslavsky and Katherine Spillar recently called for increasing the percentage of females in the Los Angeles Police Department. They correctly pointed out that women officers are far less likely to be involved in excessive force incidents because of their inclination to rely more on negotiation than physical confrontation.

The goal they recommended was that the LAPD gender balance its force (i.e., 50 percent female officers) to represent the current labor market, where women make up half of the workers.

The LAPD was taken to task by them for not vigorously pursuing this goal, with the lack of women in police work attributed to discriminatory hiring and selection practices, and to a hostile work environment for women in police work.

On its face, the LAPD does not appear to have engaged in discriminatory selection and hiring practices. Currently, approximately 18 percent of the LAPD force is female, which mirrors exactly the percentage of women who apply to become police officers. Further, the percent of women hired is greater than their percent makeup in the application pool. For example, this year 17.9 percent of the applicant pool has been female, while 21.4 percent of the hires have been female.

Thus the difficulty in achieving gender balance seems less to do with discriminatory selection and hiring practices than with the fact that women are far less likely than men to apply for police work.

The lower percentage of females applying to LAPD is not unique to this agency. Other agencies throughout the state have reported similar percentages.

Though a perceived negative work environment is a factor in inhibiting women from applying, there are also important gender differences which help explain why fewer women apply. Further, these differences help explain the gender differences in excessive force incidents, and provide important implications for female recruitment efforts.

Psychologists have found significant differences in the social and emotional styles of boys and girls that are evident in the way boys and girls play games. Boys are more inclined to emphasize justice, fairness and duty in their game playing, while girls are more likely to emphasize care and helping.

These differences are also evident in the sexes' differing approaches to conflict resolution. Girls are more likely to address conflict by offering assistance and pledging cooperation, while boys are more likely to initiate activities, apply rules or issue directives.

Gender differences in childhood carry on into adulthood. Deborah Tannen, noted psycholinguist, summarized the differences by explaining that men are more interested in independence and women are more interested in interdependence.

Because of their emphasis on independence, men value achievement and accomplishment, and are more sensitive to issues of relative status.

Women, with their greater emphasis on interdependence, are more concerned with establishing rapport and building consensus.

These gender differences help explain the disparate percentages of men and women police officers involved in excessive force incidents. Men, with their sensitivity to status issues, are more likely to act strongly when their authority is being challenged, and their actions are more likely to take the form of imposing order through the use of force, if necessary. Women, for whom relative status is of less import, are less likely to feel the need to act aggressively when their authority is challenged and are more likely to search for a consensual solution in such instances.

These gender differences also help explain why traditional police work - with its paramilitary emphasis on authority, and imposition of rules and order - would be less attractive to women.

On the other hand, police work which emphasizes community policing - in which the goal is to help citizens arrive at consensual approaches to problems - would be more attractive to women. Thus the LAPD's recent decision to emphasize community policing, when fully implemented, may have the added bonus of encouraging a wider base of female applicants.

Knowledge of gender differences may help in refining LAPD's recruitment efforts toward women. Recruitment advertising should emphasize the camaraderie and connectedness of police officers. Advertising that asks women to join the police family may be one such approach. Further, recruit materials that focus on the helping elements of police work - such as the police role in victim assistance, child and spousal abuse - may also be successful.

Before concluding, one caveat should be kept in mind. The discussion of gender differences has proceeded as if there were sharp, nonoverlapping differences between men and women. In fact, these are differences of degree.

Men and women show a range of abilities, with a number of men empathetic and sensitive, and a number of women status- and rule-oriented. On balance, however, these differences can serve as a useful paradigm in the discussion of male and female police applicants and officers.