The Law Enforcement Environmental Assessment Tools (LEEAT) were five years in the making. The current version of the LEEAT Tools were field-tested in the Albuquerque and Durham, North Carolina Police Departments with partial funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the "Women in Policing: Assessing the Work Environment" grant # 98-IJ-CX-0013. Donna Milgram, the Executive Director of the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science was the Principal Investigator for the NIJ Project and is the author of the LEEAT Tools. The first generation of LEEAT Tools was field-tested in the Tucson and Albuquerque Police Departments in 1995-96 with a grant from the US Department of Labor.

The Law Enforcement Environmental Assessment Tool questions are based on an extensive review of the literature on women and policing and secondarily women in the military and sexual harassment. The LEEAT Tools were reviewed by Police Chiefs and Command Staff in the field test sites and from other departments. Dr. Susan Martin, formerly a Study Director at the Police Foundation in Washington, DC, served as a consultant to this Project and advised on development of the assessment instruments. Dr. Evan Stark, an organizational psychologist and focus group expert, advised on the development of the focus group guide and assisted in its field-test.