Even hard working cops need a break, and many like to resort to playing video games.

Yes, your neighborhood copy is more likely than the average person to be a hard core gamer. There are many games that appeal to them. One in particular is the Sly Cooper Thieves in Time. This is a great shoot em up game that police love to play all the time.

Cops don’t have a lot of time. So one place they and others can go to get great advice about video games is over at www.fusegamer.com. They have hints, tricks, walkthroughs, trailers, cheats, and more. Oops, cheats. Yeah, a cop might slip on to the other video game line and pick up a cheat here and there to get through that tough level.

So if you want to make a connection with your local cop. Maybe it’s through video games. Ask them and find out. They could be as much of a hard core gamer as you are.

There are about 100,000 female police officers throughout the country. That includes officers at the federal, state, county, and local level and it represents about 15% of total law enforcement officers.

There are definitely differences from department to department in terms of the prevalence of female cops.

For example, at the federal level over 32% of IRS criminal investigators are female. And over 20% of officers from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are women, Compare that to less than 10% at both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Veterans Health Administration

A member of the Calgary Police Service. This picture was taken at a rally by the Aryan Guard and a counter-protest to it in the Marlborough community of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the state and local level, there is also a rather large discrepancy. On average, about 12% of local police officers are women while less than 7% of state cops are female.

County sheriff agencies have a fairly high percentage of females – about 12%. However, this is actually a decrease from previous years.

The size of the agency also makes a pretty big difference. Typically, larger departments employ a higher percentage of female officers than a smaller one. Cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Metro (DC), Chicago, and Los Angeles all have over 20% of their force made up of female police officers. And of course there are some small agencies who have yet to hire a female cop, for a variety of reasons.

So how to become a cop if you’re a woman? Well, the same way any man would. The process is exactly the same. Which also means a woman must meet the same physical requirements to get hired. It’s the same job after all, so it makes sense that the requirements are identical regardless of gender.

You can learn more about becoming a police officer at www.copuniversity.com. There are a variety of steps in the process including:

• Application
• Written Test
• Oral Board
• Physical Ability Test
• Background Investigation
• Executive Interview
• Pre-employment medical exam
• Psychological evaluation 

Most applicants do not get hired on their first attempt. The competition can be fierce with hundreds or even thousands applying for a single position. But if you are qualified and determined, and flexible in terms of the agency, there is definitely a job out there for you.

According to statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, about there are about 100,000 female sworn officers around the country. That’s just a slight increase from the previous decade.

At Bamboo Net, we’ll be taking a look at topics relating to women in law enforcement. While not occupying a large percentage of total officers, female cops prove to be an invaluable asset to a department providing diversity and often different skill sets then their male counterparts.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments on what to include in this blog.