Erella Shadmi has been studying the complex relationship among the police, society and women for more than 40 years. She spent the first 20 years of her career as an officer in the Israeli police, and the next 20 years as a sociologist, an activist and a leading feminist researcher. Shadmi dedicated her doctoral dissertation to public oversight of the police in a free society — the first dissertation about the police to be written in Israel.
A Tel Aviv native, Shadmi participated in leftist protests while still in high school. As a student of communications she joined the police, and was the first woman in the command and headquarters course. Among her many posts there, she also served as police head of the human resources planning division, and established the newsletter of Israeli policemen titled Sights of the Police.