Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top
Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top
Synopsis
Excerpt
This book really began in 1979, although I didn't know it. I was a captain in the Conrail Police Department, and I was taking courses that would ultimately result in my receiving a doctorate in American Studies from New York University in 1992. Yes, it took a long time, but that's another story for another book! Through a series of events, I delivered a paper on women in police supervisory ranks at the American Society of Criminology meeting in Philadelphia. The panel was concerned with a number of policing issues, and I was one of the few people there who was actively involved in policing and who did not yet possess a Ph.D. There was quite a bit of interest in my findings about what was then a very small number of women police supervisors, but this did not come close to matching the interest in me personally. It was obvious that most of the people I chatted with had never met a woman police manager—in fact, many had never met a woman police officer.
My career took many turns. By the time I was seriously considering a dissertation topic, the Conrail Police Department had been ordered by federal government mandate to divest itself of all but freight operations, and my colleagues and I who worked in New York City became part of a new agency, the Metro-North Commuter Railroad Police Department (subsequently renamed the MTA Police Department). In addition to my academic pursuits, I became active in the International Association of Women Police (IAWP), where I met many women like myself, who joined policing on an equal basis with our male colleagues. There were also many women who had started their careers as policewomen, with a completely different set of entry requirements and job descriptions, who were thrust