A StatsCanada report on policing is showing a 'less than ideal' proportion of female police officers at the Windsor Police Service.
The report looked at the number of female police officers compared to the population.
Windsor ranked fourth lowest in the country in 2017 at 15.9%, just above Winnipeg, Brantford and Chatham-Kent, which was at 13.5%.
Across the country, there were 14,752 female officers in Canada in 2017, accounting for just over one in five officers or 21%.
Windsor Police Sergeant Steve Betteridge says with women making up half the population, it is crucial to have more female police officers which the Windsor Police Service is trying to achieve.
But Betteridge says those stats are fluid and the number is actually up to 18% as of February. "When you are dealing with stats, that is always a living document that is always changing, if somebody retires or somebody is hired. I was able to pull our stats for this year, as of February, and we were actually more at the 18%. So it is moving in the right direction."
"Women are also represented in higher management roles at Windsor police," says Betteridge. "We have some tremendously successful senior leadership officers in our service as well as female senior directors on the civilian side."
The Windsor Police Service hired its first female officer in 1975.
Sergeant Betteridge says police attend high schools and job fairs to try and attract more women to the profession which historically has been male dominated.