Gender and Public Agency Hiring: An Exploratory Analysis of Recruitment Practices in Federal Law Enforcement

Census data indicate that women are grossly underrepresented in federal law enforcement. As all agencies must compete to attract quality candidates to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, recruiting and hiring more women should be a priority for all agency leaders. This descriptive and exploratory analysis seeks to understand the recruitment process in federal law enforcement using both qualitative and quantitative data generated from surveys collected from 201 new federal law enforcement officers working in 32 federal law enforcement agencies. The study finds that although recruitment usually precedes hiring, federal law enforcement agencies do not appear to actively recruit their officers. The study further highlights proactive efforts to recruit more women into federal law enforcement