Female Officers Retiring

[oddjob]

This was brought up at work one day. For LEO's here. How many female LEO's do you know of have retired (not on a medical)? Five of us who have 20-30+ years on could only come up with about 5. Now this what we KNOW of. Doesn't mean more have not retired. I also don't mean to start a war about men vs women. I would also like to know if they were a local agency or state or fed. It seems more men make it to retirement age than women on a per capita basis.

[yzErnie]

My wife has 22 years in and she'll be retiring in 4 years. She's a pretty tough gal and something substantial would have to happen for her to medical out so, no medical in her future. In my 32 years I can only think of only 4-5 females that have gone on to longevity retirements.

[Jonathan Doe]

I know plenty of females honorably retired. I think the new Orange County Sheriff was one of them from the LASD.

[retired]

I also don't mean to start a war about men vs women.

I hope this thread does not devolve into that or it will be locked.

[tyrist]

I knew quite a few although in my personal experience they usually do the 20 and out plan which isn't such a bad thing.

[scootergmc]

Did you get this one?

[BigDogatPlay]

I know two women personally that took service retirement, and a couple more that went on disability.

[9mmepiphany]

i know several who have retired, they were mostly in the same class because they had a whole class of females when the department lost a lawsuit.

most were Sgt.s when they retired, but at least 3 were Lts and 2 were Capts. we had 2 female officers who came on as matrons and retired as Chiefs

[Doheny]

My wife is over 50 and will do a couple of more years (if making it until 50+ is what you're getting at.) She started late, that's why she's still working.

[Roccobro]

Only seen onon(Sgt.) in my short time on.

Justin

[Fjold]

I know on BPD and one Kern SD female officer who have retired on time, not disability.

[Ron-Solo]

LASD has had many that went out on a service retirement. I personally know about 25+

Sadly, many of us (guys & gals) get hurt in our later years and get a disability retirement in addition to our service retirement.

[2Cute2Shoot]

I hope this thread does not devolve into that or it will be locked.

I hope you don't lock the thread, Retired. I am very interested to hear why women do not make it to retirement in law enforcement. Are things harder for women as they get older? Or is there a glass ceiling? I'm very interested that so many of you male officers just don't seem to see older female officers. Maybe they take their experience and switch into a related field?

[BigDogatPlay]

One of the women I know personally had a pretty good career in the business world until she got the hankering to be a LEO in her late 30's. She took a service retirement in her early 50's after her agency went to 3%@50 retirement. So it works both ways.

Women didn't start really breaking into field law enforcement in big numbers until the middle to late 1970's. As example the recently retired Chief of SFPD, Heather Fong, went on the department in 1977 with the just about the first group of women who were hired on the department in the civil service classification of police officer.

And there are more women from those early waves who have been hitting command levels... Sheriff Margaret Mims of Fresno County comes immediately to mind. Up here in my neck of the woods Chief Susan Jones of Healdsburg PD recently announced she is going to go out on service retirement after a pretty long career. As another example, you can take a look at LAPD's org chart. There are many women at the command level, from Captain on up to the three star rank of assistant chief.

Whatever glass ceiling there is I'd have to think it's largely been broken through. Does that kind of stuff still go on? I'm sure, but it will continue to be less and less over time I'd think.

I am sure there are actuarials on how many cops make it all the way to retirement. I haven't seen them, but I would bet they exist. Given that there are more men than women in the field, and that women can (and do) leave for family reasons aside from those men and women who just want a career change for what ever reason, I would guess that the number of women who don't make it to retirement might be statistically higher than that of men.