Topeka hired its 1st female police officer 130 years ago. Today, 13% of force are women.

Woman are better represented in the upper ranks at the Topeka Police Department than at most police agencies in similarly sized U.S. cities.

But compared to those cities, women are underrepresented at the lower-level supervisory rank of sergeant.

Meanwhile, Topeka's overall percentage of female police officers, 13%, is close to average for a U.S. city its size.

That information comes from a report the Bureau of Justice Statistics put out last November and from data Topeka's city government provided The Capital-Journal in response to a Kansas Open Records Act request.

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The KORA request was made after Topeka police Lt. Jennifer Cross and Capts. Jana Harden and Colleen Stuart sued last month demanding $1.5 million while saying they were passed over for promotions because they are women.

Defendants in the suit are Topeka's city government and police Chief Bryan Wheeles.

The lawsuit complaint alleges the city "treats female officers differently than male officers to the detriment of those female officers and the department."

City manager Stephen Wade said last month in response that the city tries "very hard" to diversify its workforce and make sure it provides a welcoming and safe environment for all its employees.

Here's what the stats show regarding Topeka's number of female officers

Larger cities tend to have higher percentages of women as sworn officers in its police departments, according to last November's Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

It said in 2020, the percentage of female officers was 18.8% in cities with 1 million people or more, 15.8% in cities with 500,000 to 999,999, 16.3% in cities with 250,000 to 499,999 and 13.2% in cities with 100,000 to 249,999.

Topeka had a population of 126,587 in the 2020 census.

The percentage of female officers was less than 13.2% in all other categories of cities with populations of less than 100,000.

The Topeka Police Department's sworn officers are 13% female, with 35 women being among its total number of officers, which is 269, the city said in figures it provided.

Female officers made up 9.8% of sworn officers at the Shawnee County Sheriff's Office's, or 11 of 112 officers, in the most recent statistics available for that department on the KBI website, which are from 2021.

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Here are the stats regarding Topeka's number of female supervisors

According to figures provided to The Capital-Journal:

• Topeka police have two women among 41 sergeants, amounting to 4.8% of the department's officers with that rank. That's less than half the national average of 10% being women among those with the rank of sergeant or its first-line equivalent in cities with populations of 50,000 to 249,999, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

• Topeka police have five women among 17 supervisors with intermediate supervisory ranks between lieutenant and deputy chief, which amounts to 29.4% of its officers with those ranks, compared to a national average of 8.6%.

Topeka's city government and the Topeka Police Department are committed to retaining and hiring "a diverse workforce that is representative of the community we serve," said assistant city attorney Mary Kuckelman, who provided the city's response to The Capital-Journal's KORA request.

The city and its police department make "extensive opportunities for growth and retention" available through training and leadership development available to its existing officers, Kuckelman said.

"Additionally, the city and TPD have various recruitment efforts that focus on reaching those with diversity of age, gender, language, race, and other demographics," she said.

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What's Topeka's history regarding female officers?

Topeka police employed a female officer as early as 1893, when Laura E. Thorpe — the only woman on the department — helped care for inmates as its first police matron. She held that job until 1908, according to Capital-Journal archives.

Topeka police then temporarily employed small numbers of female officers between 1913 and 1915, and again in the 1950s, those archives show.

They indicate the Topeka department in 1972 resumed hiring female officers, which it has since continued to do.

Figures posted on the KBI website show the Topeka Police Department's number of female officers rose from 21 of 277, or 7.6%, in 2003 to 39 of 285, or 13.7%, in 2021, but has since dropped to 35.

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Why don't more women join police departments?

Women are dramatically underrepresented in U.S. law enforcement, making up more than half the nation's population but less than 13% of its law enforcement officers, said a federal Bureau of Justice Statistics "Women in Policing" report put out in 2019.

The percentage of women in policing in the U.S. had remained "relatively stagnant" over the previous 30 years, it said.

The report questioned the effectiveness of government mandates in terms of helping increase that percentage.

"Recommendations from the Christopher Commission, which was founded in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating in 1991, led to sweeping reforms in the Los Angeles Police Department," it said. "When the commission mandated that the department hire 50% women, the representation of women increased dramatically in recruit classes (but only for several years) before again dropping."

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What can be done to increase number of women in policing?

The report recommended taking steps that include the following:

• "Reframing the profession" in a manner that puts less emphasis on masculinity and more focus on relationships, trust and community policing.

• Offering more family-friendly employment policies, such as postnatal nursing and extended paid parental leave.

• Learning from successful efforts to recruit more women into policing undertaken in other countries. Those include New Zealand, where the report said women make up nearly 20% of sworn officers overall.

• Improving and enforcing policies banning and setting penalties for harassment of female officers.

• Putting in place programs that provide increased support and advocacy for the retention and promotion of women officers.

• Making it a priority for departments to look at issues that disproportionately impact women in policing.

• Re-examining required physical fitness standards, which the report said are among key reasons female police recruits fail to complete academy training.

Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: 13% of Topeka police officers are women, average for cities this size