PHOENIX — A local law enforcement agency participating in a nationwide initiative and doing what it can to recruit more female officers. Now, a couple of years in, the Mesa Police Department has seen an uptick in applicants.
"When I joined in 2012, I felt like I was one of very few women in the locker room," said Recruiting Sgt. Elisha Gibbs. "Now, even being a sergeant, I come in and there's all these girls getting ready, getting ready to go hit the streets and that's awesome to see. I think the more women who join and are out there in the community we serve, other women can see that and say, 'Oh, I can do that job."
In 2020, the Mesa Police Department joined at least 300 other agencies nationwide in the "30x30 Initiative." The pledge is to have 30% of a recruiting class be female by 2030. Other local agencies taking part in the pledge include Tempe, Queen Creek and Gilbert.
"In 2020 when there was a lot of civil unrest and during COVID times, our department or specifically nationally, we recognized we were underrepresented," Gibbs said. "We had to take a look and ask why are females not applying and what can we do? We joined 30x30 to take the pledge to better educate and do the outreach into our community. When this challenge came out to take that pledge, our leader, Chief Ken Cost, said I'm here, hey let's do this and take the pledge. And he stood behind that and being one of the first 25 leaders to sign that pledge means a lot to me because we care about our community, and we care about you. We want to make sure you feel represented here in our department."
About 13% of all sworn-in officers with the Mesa Police Department are currently women. The national rate is 12%. Also, about 8% of women are in leadership roles within the department, which is higher than the national rate of 5%.
Is it where officers want to be? Gibbs said no, but it is improving.
"I don't know if we'll hit 30%," she said. "I would love to but right now we have about 15% going into our academy. So, we've raised the needle a little bit. For me, the more women we hire today means there are more five years from now. The needle is moving in the right direction."
There are hesitations though for women who may want to join law enforcement. That includes physical challenges and thinking they may not be as strong as their male counterparts. Also, if someone has children, they may be unsure if they can juggle being a mom and being a successful officer. Gibbs said if there are hesitations, people should reach out to the department.
"When we educate the public on all the different jobs and roles we have I think it becomes more appealing to a woman and less scary," she said.
And that's what the department is doing. To get more involvement of women, Mesa PD is active on social media, in schools and at community events. The goal is to answer all questions and inform women about what it takes to be a qualified law enforcement officer.
"We get to serve our community in a lot of different ways," Gibbs said. "Specifically, here in Mesa we have so many specialty units, there are community action officers, there are detectives, all sorts of family crimes advocacy center to financial crimes and resource officers and it's really about educating the public on all these different jobs. In reality, we need to de-Hollywoodize what police officers actually do because we do a lot of stuff that isn't just driving fast and running and jumping walls. Yes that can be fun, but it's a small percentage of what we do."
The 30x30 Initiative focuses on women, but Gibbs said it goes beyond that because the goal is to hire quality officers representing all different backgrounds.
"It's not about finding male or female or someone with this ethnicity," she said. "We want to find someone who wants to join our department with honor, integrity, a duty to serve and show up every day and be part of our team so we can represent our city and represent our community. So it goes way beyond gender, we're looking for qualified candidates with a mindset to do a great job."
If you'd like to join Mesa Police, or if you'd like more information you're encouraged to go to joinmesapd.com.
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