The Sarnia Police Service's effort to attract more females to a career in law enforcement seems to be paying off.
Chief Norm Hansen said they welcomed aboard Cst. Keana Knight earlier this month, and that they have another female recruit at police college right now.
In 2018 and 2019, Sarnia police held seminars aimed at increasing the number of female officers. Chief Hansen said efforts are still being made to attract more women to the service.
"We go out now to career days at various postsecondary institutions -- we've gone to the University of Windsor, Western, Guelph, Fanshawe, Lambton College -- and we always make sure that our team reflects diversity within the service so that people can see that we accept people from all walks of life."
Hansen said of the 119 uniformed officers, around 11 per cent are female.
He said the service wants to reflect the Sarnia community.
"We are reflective of the community. We are behind in our percentage of female officers mostly through attrition -- we've had a number of retirements in the last few years," said Hansen. "We don't discriminate against anyone when they apply. We're actively recruiting all the time, there's a number of retirements coming up over the next few years and we'll be trying to fill those spots as they come up."
Hansen said there are various situations where people of various genders or ethnicity are able to relate to certain populations better than others.