The Michigan State Police will hold a recruitment day in Troy on Saturday, April 25 to try to boost the number of female applicants for trooper positions.
Only about 10% of Michigan State Police troopers are women.
Sgt. Michele Sosinski is with the recruiting division at the agency. She says there are many benefits internally to having women serve alongside men.
"And of course, we want to reflect the communities that we're serving, and with half of Michigan being female, we're nowhere near that number."
Sosinski says the agency offers good-paying jobs, with enough flexibility for women to be able to raise their families, but negative stereotypes have to be overcome to get women to consider a career as a trooper.
"A lot of women think that it's either something that they couldn't do maybe physically, or they think well, that's a man's profession, not a woman's."
Soskinski says while it's not uncommon for people to begin their careers with the Michigan State Police as troopers, and then move to other departments, such as crime investigation, there are plenty of examples of women who initially planned to do that, but discovered they liked being a trooper more than they'd imagined, so they stayed on patrol.
The minimum educational level to apply is a high school diploma, although having some community college or university education is a plus.
The State Police is also trying to boost the numbers of minority applicants.
