Women In The Police Force

Networking and associations have really helped women. There are a couple of big organizations whose goals include helping women who are considering or are already in law enforcement by providing information and supporting them. There are four major associations that help do these things: the International Association of Women Police (IAWP), The National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, The National Center for Women and Policing, and Women in Federal Law Enforcement (Horne). They all have several hundred to even thousands of members. Each association has different goals and helps with different things but they all share one goal, promoting women in law enforcement so that one day they will experience equality.

Female police officers have appeared on television shows since the 1970s with shows like “Policewomen” and “Get Christie Love”. “Policewomen” paved the way for shows like “Honey West”, “NYPD Blue”, “CSI” and many more. As time went by more and more TV shows include female police officers as part of the main cast, shows like “Law and Order: Special Units Victims”, “Charles’s Angels”, “Hawaii 5-0”, etc. Policewomen on TV shows are not portrayed realistically but it is starting to change. In the earlier days, shows like “Charlie’s Angels” had detectives wear tight dress, glamorous body’s, makeup on, etc.

The term “Police Officer” by definition is [1]“ :a person whose job is to enforce laws, investigate crimes, and make arrests”.[1] For such a straight-forward position there is quite a massive amount of stigma attached to the title. Police officers are supposed to be seen has community heroes or helpers, but it seems as the year 2016 continues the general public have manifested a resentful standing towards the law enforcement system. There are many factors that play into these emotions, but the reoccurring problem is the presence of police brutality.

Qualitative research methods are used to examine the perceptions of women police regarding their career opportunities and trajectories, and their experiences with regard to the culture, practices, and policies of policing. Purposive sampling was used to identify and recruit a representative number of policewomen as study participants. Subjects completed surveys and participated in in-depth interviews. Data was analyzed through the use of constant comparative procedures, with member checks and interrater reliability scores obtained to ensure trustworthiness of the data.

The story of women in the NYPD begins in 1845 women were employed as jail matrons, and in 1891 when women are hired as Police Matrons. Their duties included searching female prisoners and supervising their care, as well as taking care of lost children. The role of women increased to assignments as investigators in 1903 and in 1912 Isabella Goodwin was promoted to First Grade Detective. Investigation of Vice and Gambling was added to women’s duties.

The duties of law enforcement involve looking after the American people. As the Los Angeles Police Department puts it, it is the police’s duty to “Protect and Serve” the community. As Americans, we should expect to be able to rely on local police to solve our problems and bring peace and stability to society. Yet, as current events have shown, these promises are not always fulfilled. Since the late 1960s, America has begun to grow from a racially segregated nation, into one of unity and equality. Today there is no doubt that immense progress has been made, however events involving our law enforcement and minorities has seemed to halt such progress. Police brutality continues to be a major issue nationwide with the

Every day the criminal justice system’s officers and employees sacrifice and risk a lot just to try and protect the world. Times in U.S. have changed a whole lot than back then, and now where to the point where police officers don’t make no one feel safe. “It is undeniable that police in the US often contend with much more violent situations and more heavily armed individuals than police in other developed democratic societies” (Lartey). Police shootings of citizens is a social problem that needs to be addressed. Police officers are aware of the mass shootings in the world today from school shootings to airport shootings. These mass shootings have damaged millions especially police officers and their training. Police officers are scared to

Law enforcement has become a predominantly male-dominated field over the past several decades. With gender roles and cultural influence in play, women have been left behind when it comes to more difficult or dangerous fields of work and study. As time has gone on, the number of women in the law enforcement has slowly increased, but that being said the numbers have not changed much. Only 14% of people employed in any branch of law enforcement are women. This is a problem that must be solved.

As shootings involving officers and suspects continue to rise, it brings a huge concern out there for current officers and future officers. When law enforcement officers die in a shooting it not only affects their family but also the whole community and state as a whole. In society today officer deaths are still very high and it’s something we may never be able to control but it is something we definitely need to look at and try to control it. Nobody is going to want to join the field of law enforcement if their chance of dying is at an all-time high and at the rate we are going now looking at the future is going to be scary. This all goes back to the poor ethics of some society members and is something that needs to be looked at and fixed immediately.

To start with the analysis, the first article, “Research on Women in Policing: A Look at the Past, Present and Future” by Archibald et al, is about how women in past experienced policing. One of the main points made by the authors is the process it took for women to gain their equal rights in policing. Women always had to work inferior to men and were paid unequal salaries for the same work they did as men. Moreover, women were given no promotions and were given a very different treatment at work. For example, women were given less work and told they're ‘incapable’ of doing the work as men were doing. As days went by, women finally took a stand to gain their equal rights. Though not many equal rights were not given to them, but several women

For this assignment, I read Cecilia MacDowell Santos’ Women's Police Stations: Gender, Violence, and Justice in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Santos is a professor and the director of Latin American Studies at University of San Francisco. She received her PhD in Sociology from University of California, Berkeley and her Master in Law from University of Sao Paulo. Her research focuses primarily on the legal mobilization within and across borders, violence, political memory, and women’s and human rights. Currently, she teaches courses on gender, development, and globalization, global inequalities and social justice, sociology of law, and Brazilian culture

I agree that although women are physically strong enough to become part of law enforcement they get discriminated against. For instance my friend that is perfectly physically fit and stronger than many men I know, yet she still couldn’t pass the physical agility test; she failed six times before passing on the seventh try.

Not only are female police officers proven to be equally as competent their male counterparts; there are some areas of policing where female officers possess even better skills (Peak, 2015). Some of those areas include using better communication skills, neutralizing and decreasing possible violent confrontations, gaining cooperation and trust from citizens, they are less likely to be involved in excessive force incidents and respond empathetically to domestic violence against women (National Center for Women & Policing, 2001). One way the impact and influence of the inclusion of women in law enforcement is that it reduces the rising cost of police brutality lawsuits involving excessive force; costing tax payers millions of dollars every year

However, as noted in the work of Joseph Loftus (2014) the field of law enforcement that there has been a change that is dramatic over the past four decades and specifically related to gender and race in the American police demographics. In the decade of the 1960s that the great percentage of police officers were those who were “white, working-class men” (Loftus, 2014: p. 2). However, in today’s criminal justice field of law enforcement there are more females and minorities becoming police officers (Loftus, 2014). The 1964 Civil Rights Act amendment in 1972 made it illegal to discriminate upon the basis of such things such as sex, color, race, national origin or religion (Loftus, 2014). And it was this amendment in 1972 that resulted in more females entering the field of law enforcement. Such entry into the area resulted in resentment because the traditionally held view and the reason that women were denied entry into the field of policing was based on the idea that women were both emotionally and physically weak (Loftus, 2014).

The role of women in policing has been traditionally very limited. The major reason behind this is because the men in control of the police departments reflect general attitudes of a large part of their communities. They believe that women should only be used in few positions that require juvenile work. These attitudes have led to the creation of the obstacles that women pursuing a career in policing face. Many police men have outlooks of women that are offensive and degrading. During numerous interviews with police men in the 1970’s many male prejudices were expressed. “I believe in male supremacy” said a chief in a major city, “I wouldn’t mind having a few good looking women around to help the men’s morale” said the head of patrol of another major department. (Milton, 1972) Women have experienced workplace issues such as sexual harassment, discrimination and lack of role models. (Milton, 1972) For example, police men at the LAPD had formed an organization called Men against Women. (Wells et al, 2005) It was for the purpose of harassment, intimidation, and even criminal activity against police women. (Wells et al, 2005) Women have had it rough being in the police department, they would sometimes be held to a higher level of performance and were not given equal consideration for specialty jobs. (Wells et al, 2005) It was found that police men wanted a partner who was tough and would fight and back them up. There were instances where police men would fake illness to avoid