WOMEN AND MINORITIES IN POLICE WORK

Women and Minorities in Police Work

Women and Minorities in Police Work

Introduction

Today, women and minorities are increasingly consolidating their social ascension in modern life and are making increasingly present in political activities, administrative and cultural society. Female participation has been consolidating in final in areas that were previously considered exclusive redoubt of the men are not rare to find women police. In 1910 the first female officer was sworn in, but that was an exception. Women in policing were selected with separate criteria than men; women police officers were preordained and limited to working with other women, children and typewriters. The Indianapolis Police Department made history in 1968 by allowing the first two female officers to patrol on an equal level as the male officers (Campbell, J. D., et al., 2000, and Zhao, J., et al., 2001). It was only until 1972 when the civil rights act of 1964 that women officers obtained the right of equal opportunity in the law enforcement. Even after these recent changes women are still facing a variety of barriers and challenges.

Statistics

The National Center for Women & Policing conducted its third annual study on the status of women in the largest law enforcement departments in the country. This report examines the barriers that are preventing women from increasing their numbers in the agencies and the effects of the under-representation in the departments. (Gossett, J. L. and Joyce E. W., 1998)

Women make up 14.3% of all sworn Law Enforcement officer. (Men 85.7%) That's up from 9.0% in 1990. Women of color make up 6.8%.

Women in top command positions currently hold 5.6%, 9.2% of supervisory positions and 15.6% hold line operation positions. Colored women hold 1.1% sworn top command; 2.8% supervisory; and 7.8% of line operations.

65% of the agencies surveyed reported not having any women in Top Command positions while 91% reported not having any colored women in higher rank positions.

State agencies reported 6.2% sworn women officers, which was extremely lower than municipal agencies at 16.6% and county at 11.1%.

Many women (66.1%) hold the lower paying civilian positions. While 25.7% women of color hold the same positions. (Gossett, J. L. and Joyce E. W., 1998)

These statistics just prove that women are not equally represented but what are the barriers or problems that are causing this misrepresentation.

The Barriers

Research says that the single largest barrier that is not helping the increase of women on the police force is the attitudes and the behavior of the male chief officers. (Grant, D. R., 2000) According to Critical issues in Policing (pg.369-370 women officers on the Move) Kanter suggest that there are three key features that make up the occupational behavior; 1) the opportunity structure, 2) the power structure and; 3) relative numbers.

Kanter believes that men behave different than women because they have more real power and greater opportunities to get higher ranked positions and better chance of mobility. Blocked mobility can lead to less motivation that can cause a downward look and ...