More Swedish women want to be cops

Of the 158 new students which began their training in January, 81 are women and 77 are men.

“It is great that the police force continues to be a popular occupation and that more and more women want to become police,” Ebba Sverne Arvill, rector at the Swedish National Police Academy, said in a statement.

“We need people with different backgrounds and experience so that the police force is representative of the wider society,” said Monica Landergård at the police academy to The Local.

But despite the historic intake it will take some time before there is an equal gender balance across the entire the academy.

“That is something we work actively towards. Although it is not actually the academy that manages admissions, that is the job of the National Police Board (Rikspolistyrelsen).”

Of all the students on the four semester long courses (a fifth semester of practical experience completes the course) at the academy only 40 percent are women.

“If I look at the statistics from 2000 and onwards then the figure has fluctuated between 35-44 percent.”

Monica Landergård stressed that gender is just one of the classifications that reflect the diverse nature of a developing Swedish society and that police force recruitment drives are also aimed at those with immigrant backgrounds.