This chart represents the percent of women officers in federal law enforcement in 2008 according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics as stated in the 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers.
- Office of Inspectors Generals: 24.5% women
- Small Agencies: 9.8% women
- Medium Agencies: 9.3% women
- Large Agencies: 20.3% women
This chart represents the percent of women officers in federal law enforcement in the decade of 1998-2008. These percentages are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics as stated in the 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers.
- 1998: 14% women
- 2000: 14.7% women
- 2002: 15% women
- 2004: 15% women
- 2008: 15.2% women
As seen in the statistics above, women are highly underrepresented in law enforcement. At most they represent 24.5% of the field in a certain agency, while they represent 51% of the population in America. Given this data is only for federal agencies, the representation of women may be different in state and local agencies.
However, the representation of women has begun to increase at a very slow rate, as seen in the second chart. As more women continue to join the police force, the benefits that women bring to law enforcement are expected to increase.