Women in Small-Town Policing

This study examined the relationships among job performance, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scores, self-perceived stress, and supervisory-perceived stress for female police officers. Thirty full-time female officers from 19 small-town departments served as subjects, representing 91% of all full-time female municipal officers in Vermont. A comparable group of 30 full-time male officers from the same departments and matched for experience was used as a control group. Results showed that, to a large extent, male and female officers experienced the same stressors in small-town policing. One exception was for task-related stressors, with women reporting more stress when exposed to tragedy, and feeling more stress associated with responsibility for the safety of the public and their professional colleagues. Women also reported stress associated with working in a male-dominated occupation. The increased stress did not affect job performance, however. Performance evaluations by supervisors indicated that female and male officers do the job equally well.