Public Safety
State Police seek to shrink trooper gender gap
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By BROOKE KANSIER
Capital News Service
LANSING — With male troopers outnumbering females 9-1, the Michigan State Police is reaching out to aspiring woman troopers to improve gender diversity numbers — both in the present and the future. Women make up just under 10 percent of the current State Police force. This number has dropped from past diversity improvements that followed a Federal Justice Department lawsuit against the MSP in 1975, which accused the department of discriminating against females and minorities when hiring state troopers. Col. Kriste Kibbey Etue — who became the MSP’s first female director in 2011 — said that improving this percentage is a priority.