International Women's Day 2022: Almost 40% of Suffolk Police officers are female
The stereotype that police work is male dominated is becoming increasingly a thing of the past - as Suffolk Police move for equality.
Last updated 8th Mar 2022
This International Women's Day bosses at Suffolk Police say they're still working to make the force more diverse and representative.
The stereotype police work is male dominated is becoming increasingly a thing of the past, as more and more women join the force.
In 2020 more women were recruited to Suffolk Constabulary than men.
Lowestoft-based Inspector Claire Simmons, told us the ratio of male to female officers in the force is now closer to "50/50."
She said "I've been a police officer for over 25 years now and there's been massive changes."
"I would have said 25 years ago it was massively male dominated, certainly within the frontline operations, now the gap is lessened hugely."
She estimated only 12% of frontline officers were female when she first joined the Metropolitan Police and that women were more likely to be found in the back office and in support roles.
But now in 2022 Claire said women now make up around 40% of the frontline.
"So for me, I would say I've seen massive changes and if somebody said now you work in an all male environment, I don't feel this."
Claire also told us about all the work that had been completed over the years to make it a more inclusive environment.
"So much has been done over the years to bring everyone on board."
"In terms of back office support, to keep female offer offices operational, when or if they decide to have a break to have a family, there's support mechanisms there."
"So I don't think the longevity is gone so much because perhaps people would have joined and then felt they had no option but to leave if they decided that they wanted to have a family."
Claire is part of the Suffolk Association for Women in Policing (SAWP)
"(It's an) internal network which supports our female colleagues. It's not exclusive to women."
"We do have male members of SAWP who want to champion of the rights of women in policing police officers and staff."
"And through that network we clearly have done a lot of work because we've put particularly at gender as opposed to other support networks that look at other aspects of protected characteristics."
They are also " Male roles sort of senior in organisations... that promote the gender agenda."
Claire told us about "one of our detective inspectors who's going over to Dublin this week." For International Women's Day."
"He's going to go as our advocate to sit on the International Association for Women in policing. So there you're going to get people from across across the globe... who are gonna receive input."
"One of our executive members from SAWP is also going to be attending"
They also have "the development side by side with the colleagues, we have something called active learning sets as well as mentoring and coaching which we support our colleagues with all the inclusive workshops that we do around well being."
"For quite a small force also are actively involved in the British Association of Women in policing. So for quite a small force we do keep our feet on the ground in terms of what's what's going on and what the other picture is, what the influences are."
We asked Claire what it was like to be apart of a group that makes the effort to be inclusive and to see other women in authoratitive roles.
"It's empowering and it's a massive confidence boost. "
"There's been a lot of talk in the media over the last year around sort of like misogyny and women safety and we've actually looked at that internally. "
"There's been a lot of Coms that has gone out in terms of of feeling safe in the workplace and and feeling supported. And if you didn't think something was right and to promote that inclusivity internally."
"As well as obviously what we we do it externally there, there are certainly those those checks and measures internally to make sure that there's no culture reminiscent of years ago and to make people feel more positive about speaking up and and if something goes wrong, we'll we'll absolutely fix it and we will support those that those people moving forward."