How do law enforcement agencies recruit diverse applicants? Analysis of digital recruiting materials
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14613557231185661 |
| Author | Jennifer R Rineer,Travis A Taniguchi,Brian Aagaard,Julia Brinton,Sarah E Duhart-Clarke,Paige Presler-Jur,Sean Wire |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
How do law enforcement agencies recruit
diverse applicants? Analysis of digital
recruiting materials
Jennifer R Rineer
RTI International, USA
Travis A Taniguchi
National Policing Institute, USA
Brian Aagaard
RTI International, USA
Julia Brinton
RTI International, USA
Sarah E Duhart-Clarke
RTI International, USA
Paige Presler-Jur
RTI International, USA
Sean Wire
RTI International, USA
Abstract
Law enforcement agencies across the country are struggling to recruit qualified candidates and this problem is pronounced
when recruiting demographically diverse officers. Women demonstrate competencies important for effective policing:
restoring trust in police, obtaining high case clearance rates, and using less force. The goal of this study was to understand
how agencies use online recruiting materials to recruit women officers. Weassessed the frequency of text, images, and vid-
eos depicting women and racially and ethnically diverse individuals, and content related to hiring and the job itself. We con-
ducted thematic analysis to understand how policing, the agency, and diversity were portrayed. Characteristics known to
discourage women applicants were highlighted prominently in materials. Agencies did not provide consistent messaging
about diversity,resources for women, or support for work–life balance. We found differences between agencies with higher
and lower percentages of women, but they were inconsistent and often in unexpected directions.
Keywords
Recruiting, diversity and inclusion, women in policing, police agency staffing, content analysis
Submitted 5 Dec 2022, Revise received 11 Apr 2023, accepted 13 Jun 2023
Corresponding author:
Jennifer R Rineer, PhD, RTI International, 3040 E Cornwallis Rd., Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
Email: jrineer@rti.org
Original Research Article
International Journal of
Police Science & Management
2023, Vol. 25(4) 500–515
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14613557231185661
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Introduction
Women demonstrate competencies that are important for
effective policing. Female officers can restore trust in the
police (Barnes et al., 2018), use less physical force
(Bolger, 2015), and have been associated with higher
reporting and clearance rates for rape cases (Schuck,
2018). Greater representation of women in sworn positions
ensures that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) more closely
reflect the demographics of the communities they serve.
The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
recommended that LEAs strive to create a workforce that
contains a broad range of diversity along race, gender, lan-
guage, life experience, and cultural backgrounds to improve
understanding and effectiveness in dealing with all commu-
nities (COPS Office, 2015).
Despite these identified benefits, representation of
women in law enforcement has lagged behind that of
other historically underrepresented demographic groups.
For example, although racial and ethnic minority represen-
tation reached 27% (of sworn officers) by 2013, women’s
representation had still only reached 12%. Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act prohibits selection based on sex; LEAs
cannot hire women simply because they are women. Yet,
researchers and practitioners have argued that agencies
should conduct women-specific recruiting efforts and
create work practices and experiences that are attractive
to, and supportive of, women (Bergman et al., 2016).
Policing services in other countries have found more
success in improving representativeness among sworn offi-
cers. The Australian Federal Police achieved sworn staffing
of 22% women in 2021 (a 2% increase since 2016) and has
set a goal of 30% by 2028 (Australian Federal Police,
2021). Among Australian state and territorial police agen-
cies, 27.3% of sworn police staff were female (2021–
2022) ranging from 22% to 34% (Australian Government
Productivity Commission, 2023). In Canada in 2021, 22%
of officers were women (Canadian Centre for Justice and
Community Safety Statistics, 2022). This proportion had
increased since data collection began in 1986 but has
been relatively stable over the past few years (Conor
et al., 2020; Perrott, 2023). In 2022, the 43 police forces
in England and Wales achieved nearly 35% representation
of women in sworn positions (Home Office, 2022).
Beyond failures to attract diverse candidates, law
enforcement has experienced significant challenges with
all recruiting in recent years. Larger LEAs across the US
and in other countries report staffing shortages that have
prevented them from achieving authorized strength [e.g.,
San Francisco Police Department (Shanks, 2023),
Pittsburgh Police Department (Vellucci, 2023), Phoenix
Police Department (Golightly, 2023), territorial police
forces throughout the UK (The Crime Report, 2021), and
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; Cottrill,
2017)]. The reasons for these staffing shortfalls vary; it
has been associated with heightened levels of police–com-
munity tensions in light of high-profile examples of police
abuse of authority (Morrow et al., 2019), competitive job
markets (Copeland et al., 2022), and person characteristics
correlated with demographic cohorts (especially millennials
and later) (Langham, 2017). Given the general, and gender-
specific, struggleto recruit qualified candidates, LEA s need a
better evidencebase to identify effectiverecruiting strategies.
Recruitment theories: Signaling and uncertainty
reduction
This research was guided by two theories that help to
explain why public-facing recruiting material is so critical
to recruiting women into policing. First, signaling theory
(Rynes, 1991; Spence, 1973) explains how information
affects applicant attraction to recruiting organizations.
People make job choices based on imperfect information;
job seekers have limited knowledge of an organization
and job until they are hired and fill the position. Once
employed, it can still take time to fully understand an orga-
nization’s culture, policy and practices, norms, and expecta-
tions and even long-tenured employees may not be privy to
all aspects of an organization or organizational decision-
making. Instead, potential applicants must use observable
information as signals of unobservable organizational char-
acteristics. Within the context of the current study, job
seekers must infer what a job and organization are like
based on the limited information available to them
through channels such as websites, social media, and per-
sonal contacts. Recruitment materials may have stronger
signaling value for people with less pre-existing informa-
tion about the organization.
Second, uncertainty reduction theory (URT; Berger and
Calabrese, 1975), provides an additional framework for
how organizational messaging may impact a person’s
journey to application. Like signaling theory, URT also
assumes that a person first assesses potential person–organ-
ization fit based on visible characteristics of an agency
(McCarthy et al., 2018; Ployhart et al., 2017). URT elabo-
rates on this by describing three different stages of an appli-
cant: a prospective applicant’s journey to a career begins
with general interests based on externally observable char-
acteristics of an organization (the entry phase); transitions
to directly learning more about an organization’s values,
beliefs, and attitudes (personal contact); and resolves in
an applicant’s decision to apply (or not) (exiting from the
application process).
Signaling and uncertainty reduction theories were estab-
lished decades ago, but have continued to be supported in
Rineer et al. 501
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