A qualitative analysis of gender inequality in Southeast Missouri law enforcement agencies

While it has been established that law enforcement agencies invest substantial monetary and non-monetary resources to recruit, hire, and train qualified everyday civilians into law enforcement officers (Henderson & Melitski, 2022), less is known about how to effectively reduce officer turnover, especially among female law enforcement employees (Andreescu & Vito, 2021;Smith et al., 2014).Qualified officers who leave their law enforcement jobs cost their agency an estimated one to five times the salary of one full time employee, with turnover being highest in smaller, southern, rural, and municipal level agencies (Hilal & Litsey, 2020).Along these same lines, law enforcement employees who are not motivated to perform to a certain standard, and who are not subsequently rewarded for reaching that certain standard, tend to leave their current organizations for new opportunities (Ahmad et al., 2018).These forms of turnover are seen in law enforcement for numerous reasons, with one of these reasons being the lack of ABSTRACT Does gender inequality impact the careers of female law enforcement officers in the Southeast Missouri region?Using a qualitative single instrumental case study, seven cis-gendered female law enforcement officers who were employed at local law enforcement agencies within the Southeast Missouri region were interviewed to investigate the central research question.Four themes emerged from the data that illustrated their experiences: sexual exploitation and harassment, a lack of work-life balance, the presence of gender stereotypes, and patriarchal hierarchy and male dominance in the workplace.The findings suggest that the experiences of female law enforcement officers are heavily impacted by the behavior and attitudes of their coworkers and command staff, most of whom are male.