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As a rank-and-file police officer, Cecily Barker never saw herself as any different than any other cop. 

鈥淚've always tried to just see myself as another officer, and not the difference between male and females,鈥� she says.  

But since being named sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 first female chief of police, she can鈥檛 help but see a big difference. 

鈥淲hat has really stood out to me in the last few weeks, if not longer than that, is going to community meetings and seeing really young girls just so excited to see me and wanting to take a picture or just telling me how I've broken the glass roof for them,鈥� Barker says. 

She recently sent out a Happy Mother's Day email to the force and was surprised when officers wrote her back about how they appreciated her genuine good wishes as a mother. 

鈥淢en and women were like, 鈥榃e've never had someone who we felt actually cared and was thinking about us,鈥欌�� Barker says. 鈥淚 don't think that's against anybody else. I think it's just something that women are good at. We're empathetic, and we just maybe recognize things that maybe men don't always.鈥�

Barker is not the first female cop 鈥� that was in 1891 in Chicago 鈥� or the first female chief of police 鈥�  in Portland in 1985 鈥� but she has broken that glass ceiling for sa国际传媒官网网页入口 and she plans on 鈥渘ot being the last鈥� female chief.

Women in policing has always interested me 鈥� so much so that I included a chapter on the subject in my 2016 book, 鈥淏road Influence, How Women Are Changing the Way America Works.鈥� Back then, much of the news was focused on George Floyd and police brutality. I wondered why more women weren鈥檛 recruited as police officers? Statistically speaking, they used excessive violence much less, drew their weapons much less and were more successful in mediating peaceful conclusions to often tough situations.

From that chapter:

Lawsuits alleging the use of excessive force by police cost taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Female officers are the defendants far less often than men, and male officers cost between 2.5 and 5.5 times more to taxpayers because of payouts to settle such suits, according to a study by the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Center for Women & Policing. 

For example, the City of Los Angeles paid $63.4 million between 1990-1999 in lawsuits for excessive force and other violent complaints against male officers. By contrast, in the same period it paid $2.8 million for similar allegations against female officers, but not one of those complaints was for excessive force. 

Male officer payouts in cases of brutality and misconduct were 23 times the amount paid in cases involving women; in cases involving killings, settlements for male-involved lawsuits were 43 times those involving women; and 32 times the amount paid to settle female-involved assault and battery cases. While this does reflect the fact that there are simply more male cops than female cops, notably, there was no difference in the amount of routine force reported by gender, only in the use of excessive force. Incidents in which suspects are maimed or killed in custody are subject to an excessive force investigation. Generally, there are substantially fewer public complaints against female police, according to another study, such as for rudeness or other bad behavior. 

For more than three decades from the 1990s to nearly 2020, women police officers seemed to have plateaued at about 11% of police forces nationwide. Up from 5% in 1980, but still a far cry from the 20-30% required for critical mass. In recent years, that number seems to have started to move: In 2023, about 14% of sworn police officers were women, With nearly 60% of the civilian police force 鈥� 911 and dispatch operators, crime scene technicians, evidence technicians and parking enforcement 鈥� being female. 

That 14% translates to roughly 100,000 female cops nationwide, . Progress is slow because female cops lack support systems: The national associations for female cops are mostly defunct or are severely short-staffed 鈥� I emailed or called three of them for this column and none responded. And the sector draws little attention from researchers 鈥� which is why more of the studies on women policing date back to the 1990s. 

Barker is cognizant of all this and hopes to help change things. She鈥檚 proud of the 鈥淲omen in Blue鈥� event the police academy puts on twice a year that helps recruit female officers. Including cadets, 160 of sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 952-person force are women, or nearly 20% 鈥� which is higher than the national average. And their presence is felt. From January through May of this year, there have been 135 use-of-force cases involving 160 officers 鈥� 22 of them were female and 138 were male.

Barker says the stronger female showing is due to a pre-academy recruitment force that is evenly split, male/female. This team helps recruits get into shape and do what they need to qualify for the force. For Barker, who was a college athlete, the physical requirements weren鈥檛 tough. But for many women, learning to train as a team is a new experience and one that requires some prep and practice 鈥� that鈥檚 part of what the pre-academy team does. 

Barker notes that the force has already become much more female friendly. When she had her daughter, she didn鈥檛 get any parental leave 鈥� she had to take vacation and sick time 鈥� and she had to stop nursing early as 鈥渂reastfeeding and wearing a vest didn't work very well.鈥� Now, all parents, male and female, are given three months paid parental leave. And nursing women can opt to come back on lighter duty to allow them to pump in one of the force鈥檚 dedicated rooms, rather than scrambling to find a place in the field while wearing kevlar. 

Barker also notes that she isn鈥檛 alone. Not only does she often text her counterparts in Tucson, Arizona, and Sacramento, California, but she鈥檚 good friends with the city鈥檚 first female fire chief, Emily Jaramillo, and the head of sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Community Safety, Jodie Esquibel.  

鈥淲e have all worked our butts off to get where we're at, so that people recognize that women can lead, and that we are doing an exceptional job at it,鈥� she says. 

Her daughter, now 17, couldn鈥檛 be prouder and is one of many young girls in the city who look up to Barker as a role model.

鈥淚'm honored and humbled for this opportunity,鈥� Barker says. 鈥淚 just don't want it to be the last time, you know, I want it to get to the point where it's common for women to be in leadership roles within our police department and across the country.鈥�

Jay Newton-Small is the editor-in-chief and executive vice president of the sa国际传媒官网网页入口.