FARMINGTON – Law enforcement agencies across the country are trying to diversify their workforce to more closely reflect the communities they serve in response to high-profile and deadly encounters between police and minorities.

But one area that is grossly out of balance and rarely talked about is the number of men serving compared with women, who make up about 12 percent of police officers across the country. To support women in law enforcement, the Farmington Police Department organized a two-day conference Wednesday and Thursday to address the challenges women face in a male-dominated field. More than 50 officers or civilian workers are attending, from Colorado and New Mexico.

“It’s a profession where we need to reflect our community,” said Steve Hebbe, chief of the Farmington Police Department, who had the idea for a local conference. “We need more women to come into it, to bring a different perspective. ... It’s important to our profession that we get more women in it and more of those women begin to rise up in the ranks.”

The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, which sent six or seven employees to the conference, has 111 professionally certified deputies, of which 14 are female, or about 13 percent, said Dan Bender, spokesman for the agency. Another four or five are going through the certification process, he said.

The Durango Police Department has about 52 sworn officers, of which five are female – or 10 percent, said Lt. Ray Shupe.

Maj. Jessica Tyler with the Albuquerque Police Department’s Training Academy said people are hesitant to enter law enforcement in general because of the public scrutiny that has befallen the profession. But the decision is even harder for women, knowing it is a male-dominated field, she said. It’s unlikely there will ever be a 50-50 split between men and women because not enough women are interested in the career, she said.

“A lot of it, I think, is trying to balance that home life and the career, and I think in a profession like this, that can be a little more challenging,” Tyler said. The same is true in other professions, including construction and CEO-level positions, she said.

“It’s just the society that we still live in,” she said.

But women are often better at defusing hostile situations, something that is being stressed at agencies across the country. “There’s a lot of research out there that shows women are good communicators and are better listeners than their male counterparts, and a lot of times in defusing situations, that’s exactly where it comes from – the listening component,” Tyler said.

Because of the danger associated with law enforcement, families also tend to be less supportive of female family members joining law enforcement, Tyler said.

Hebbe said crime fighting isn’t anything like what people watch on television. It’s not about knock down, drag out fights, foot chases and shooting a weapon, he said.

Generally speaking, female officers don’t have the same size advantage as men, so they tend to be more patient and use their communication skills to de-escalate situations, he said.

“That’s something they bring to the field already, is their ability to use their inner-personal skills to kind of calm things down,” he said.

“I think you see more departments trying to accent that.”

shane@durangoherald.com