Photo Galleries - Women in Law Enforcement

The first female police officer in the country with arrest powers, Alice Stebbins Wells, arrived in 1910 with the Los Angeles Police Department. By 1937, the department employed 39 policewomen. Women are serving in most areas of the department; they have yet to crack the elite SWAT unit, but a 2008 report led to 12 women being accepted into the training program that feeds the unit. These photos, which show several of the pioneering police women of the department, have been provided by the Los Angeles Police Historical Society.

You don't need to have majored in biology to know that men and women are not created equal-in measurements, that is. That's why female officers need ballistic vests made especially for their unique shapes. And now that women make up a more significant amount of the market share in law enforcement, body armor companies are taking notice.