John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

   

Professor Dorothy Schulz of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration was interviewed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation”  about the rise of women within the ranks of law enforcement agencies. According to Professor Schulz’s research, women make up about three percent of police chiefs in the United States.

To listen to the NPR interview, click here.

Schulz, a retired captain with the Metro-North Commuter Railroad Police Department and its predecessor, Conrail, was the first woman captain in either department. She researched and wrote From Social Worker to Crimefighter: Women in United States Municipal Policing as part of her doctoral studies at New York University. Published by Praeger in 1995, it focuses on the introduction of women into policing and describes how modern women were forced to reject their earlier roles for a wider presence in law enforcement. Continuing her research into women in policing, she wrote Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top(Praeger, 2004). This book, based on questionnaires and interviews, describes the careers of current chiefs and sheriffs and relates the history of the few women who served early in twentieth century. With Kimberly Hassell and Carol A. Archbold, she edited Women and Policing in America; Classic and Contemporary Readings (Aspen Publishers, 2011). She was editor of the federal volume of the Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement (Sage, 2004), a three-volume police reference work. Schulz is active in both the railroad and transit sections of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and has worked with the Federal Transit Administration (U.S. Department of Transportation) on developing procedures and guidelines for security for new rail systems and for those extending their existing transit systems. She has also worked with the FTA to develop audit procedures for transit agencies and on updating policies for threat assessments and safety and security management. Schulz has written on issues in transit policing, including most recently, with Susan Gilbert, Video Surveillance Uses by Rail Transit Agencies, a synthesis report funded and published in 2011by the Transportation Research Board.