Walking the Thin Blue Line

While the proportion of female officers in law enforcement is increasing, upper level administrative positions continue to be held overwhelmingly by male officers. This paper attempts to provide a fuller depiction of the barriers women may encounter within police departments resulting from the dynamics associated with the ‘tokenism’ phenomenon. It is concluded that tokenism-combined with factors such as family commitments and organizational structures-plays a large role in determining upward mobility, serving to reduce the frequency of the promotion of women to higher rank/supervisory positions in police departments.