Women in Armed Forces

Women In Policing

History of Women in Police •The role of Women in policing in the early 1900's was a similar role to that of a social worker. September 12, 1910, the determination of Alice Wells awarded her in becoming the nation’s first appointed female policewoman with arrest powers. Wells did not stop after she received the honor of being the first police women. With publicity on her side she focused her efforts in promoting the need for female officers, and this resulted in the hiring of policewomen in 16 other cities. In 1970, only two percent of all police were women In 1972 , Congress passed an amendment to Title VII of the civil rights act of 1964. It prohibited agencies from discrimination based on gender. 1991 nine percent of police were women Today 13 % of all police are women According to the National Center for Women and Policing, female officers are now becoming more valuable to departments: Proven to be as competent as their male counterparts in patrol and administrative work Less likely to use excessive force. Physical strength has not been proven to be a significant predictor of effectiveness in an officer’s ability to manage dangerous situations. Adept at implementing community-oriented policing where communication, problem solving, and cooperation skills are paramount Able to improve law enforcement’s response to domestic violence situations, the single largest category of calls made to police agencies Key to reducing problems of sexual harassment and discrimination within an agency. Sexual harassment is more prevalent in male-dominated workplaces. Hiring and retaining women reduces the under-representation of female officers. Progressive law enforcement agencies recognize the value of building a competent force that more clearly reflects the demographic profile of the community they serve. http://www.norfolk.gov/Police/recruitment/NPD_Women.asp# The above link is a recruitment video that the Norfolk Police Department actively airs during recruitment periods. The video is targeting women, and asking them to consider a career with the Norfolk Police Department. Traditionally, Police departments have attempted to recruit men.		The Serge •At the executive levels during the late 1980's and early 1990's, women were very rare. We found very limited representation of women at all levels of police management/supervision. Less than two percent of police (1.4%) in the very top ranks of the uniformed police are women. In the lower supervisory ranks 2.5% of the lieutenants and 3.7% of the sergeants were women (Martin 1988). • It was not until recently that women are begining to play a bigger role in police supervision. In the New York Police Department, one of the largest police agencies in the nation, 15% of all uniformed officers in the department are women, but only 9% are sergeants, 6% are lieutenants, 3% are captains and 4% are above the rank of captain Is Their a Difference Between Male and Female Officers? According to past research on women police, the general answer on how successful they are at their job is that there is no difference between the two sexes. Women are able to perform all of the many different kinds of police work; Therefore, virtually all research concludes that women do have such ability to equally perform or out perform males in duties like: • patrol work (Bloch and Anderson 1974, Sherman 1975, Townsey 1982) • citizen satisfaction (Sherman 1975), • Police chief evaluations (Seligson 1985), • Response to hazardous situations (Elias 1984), • Academy academic performance (Elias 1984), • Physical capability (Townsey 1982), • Physical training receptivity (Moldon 1985), • The handling of violent confrontations (Moldon 1985, Grennan 1987).