Women police officers remain significantly underrepresented in police services across British Columbia, data shows.
Among the 19 local police services in the province with 100 or more officers in 2023, gender diversity was greatest in the New Westminster Police Department, according to a new analysis by the Local News Data Hub at Toronto Metropolitan University. Women made up 30 per cent of the 111 uniformed frontline and senior officers who comprise the sworn ranks. The next best performer was the RCMP detachment responsible for local policing in Nanaimo, where 29 per cent of sworn officers were women.
Davey, who has spent nearly three decades in policing, said women are “better versed at communication than men, so we can talk our way through and around a whole bunch of things way before having to use force.” The analysis used personnel data submitted annually by municipal police services to Statistics Canada’s Police Administration Survey. Brianna Jaffray, from the Canadian Center for Justice and Community Safety Statistics at Statistics Canada, confirmed that comparing the survey’s personnel data across jurisdictions and over time was a valid approach. The data also showed that:
– The poorest performing police service in British Columbia was the RCMP-run police jurisdiction in the Lower Mainland District, located in the province’s southwest corner. With women making up 16 per cent of officers, it ranked 68th out of 75. The research team interviewed 91 women, most of them sworn officers, and Sanders said participants frequently mentioned having to deal with “sexual innuendos being made on the job, or statements that no one should be expected to have to listen to or learn to laugh off, in order to feel like they’re just part of the club.”
Davey suggested other reasons women rule out careers in policing. Some don’t see it as an option because it has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation, she said. Others are put off by the high levels of public scrutiny and police oversight. “You have to have pretty thick skin to go through numerous investigations on your actions, it’s not for everybody.”
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