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committee of police chiefs, activists, and academics has kicked off a collaboration to investigate new ways of selecting police officers, with the goal of increasing the numbers of women police officers and creating a more diverse, effective and progressive police force. Penny Harrington, Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Center for Women and Policing, is part of this committee, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and initiated by two feminist law professors at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Lani Guinier and Susan Sturm.

"Right now police officers are often recruited from the military and private security, professions dominated by men," said Harrington, a former chief of police in Portland, Oregon. "Police officers are generally not recruited from professions like nursing, teaching, and social work, which are dominated by women. The written tests often administered to police officer candidates are rarely checked for gender or race bias. And the oral interview is often conducted by white male police officers. The background check process does not take into account whether a man has been accused of domestic violence. But women who have been victims of domestic violence can be rejected because of the feeling that she can’t take care of herself. So women tend to be left out or penalized at every stage of police officer selection."

Harrington will join prominent academics and police chiefs including Mary Ann Wycoff of the Police Executive Research Forum, San Diego Assistant Chief Ruletta Armstead, Kay Codish, Director of the New Haven, CT Police Academy, and Ronald Hampton, Executive Director of the National Black Police Association. Harrington hopes to explore with the other committee members ways to include citizen input into police officer selection. "I truly believe that the community should select their own police officers," said Harrington.

Harrington recently testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights in a hearing on racial and gender bias in the Los Angeles Police Department. She testified that despite years of recommendations and pressure from women’s groups and the Los Angeles City Council, women police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department continue to be subjected to discrimination and sexual harassment. The LAPD has a hiring goal of 43.4% women police officers, yet usually only 20% of the officers it hires are women, and there are still no women at the highest command levels of the LAPD.

The National Center for Women and Policing is holding its second annual conference in March, 1997 in Anaheim, California. The conference will feature three themes: Innovation in Policing, Increasing Women in Policing, and Personal Development. For more information about the conference please call (213) 651-2532.