■■ topic paper – police practices
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Plan – hire more womenInherencySquo police culture is a hypermasculine culture – female officers are only 15% of the police forceCOCKROFT senior lecturer in dpt law and criminal justice studies, Canterbury Christ Church Univ. UK 2013 (Tom, Police Culture: Themes and Concepts, Routledge, p. 61, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16] In 1991, Malcolm Young in An Inside Job described the police institution as a 'primarily masculine domain' driven by imagery of 'hunting' and 'warfare' (p. 191) and one which is, ideologically at least, a polar opposite to the formulaic qualities that have traditionally been associated with the female gender. Although Heidensohn (1992, p. 77) raises doubts as to the universality or authenticity of rigidly masculine portrayals of police work, an emphasis on stereotypically male attitudes and behaviours has for a long time been regarded as an integral element of cop culture (Reiner, 1992; Maguire and Norris, 1994; Skolnick, 1994). Whilst police literature addressing the gendered nature of policing is not particularly expansive, the idea that the police world is fundamentally based on traditional male values is beyond doubt (Silvestri, 2003). Furthermore, Westmarland (2008, p. 267) suggests that such 'institutional sexism' (transmitted through traditions, institutional arrangements and cultural knowledge) limits the ability of the police to provide appropriate levels of service both to female members of the public and to females employed within policing agencies. To fully appreciate the gendered qualities of police culture, there is a real need to understand the role that 'masculinity' plays in the occupational culture of the police and how this impacts on police conceptions of gender.//// Female police officers still experience minority status within police forces throughout the world, in the United States, analysis by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2010) suggests that female officers number just under 100,000 and represent 15.2 per cent of the total number. In England and Wales, the Home Office (2010) presents data that indicates a considerably higher percentage of females at 25.7 per cent, amounting to 37,066 officers. Police forces throughout Western Europe and North America have experienced substantial increases in numbers of female officers in recent years. In England and Wales, for example, Home Office figures show an 8.7 per cent increase in numbers of female officers between the years 2000 and 2010 (Home Office 2000, 2010). Nevertheless, this marked differentiation in representation of males and females within the police has been an entrenched feature of police forces for many years and has been assumed by some to be a substantial factor explaining the prevalence of an exaggerated masculinity amongst many police officers. ImpactsHypermasculine policing influences police practices – causes stigmatizing or violent interactions with womenCOCKROFT senior lecturer in dpt law and criminal justice studies, Canterbury Christ Church Univ. UK 2013 (Tom, Police Culture: Themes and Concepts, Routledge, p. 61, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16] The masculine orientation of the police culture, therefore, has far-reaching consequences in terms of how it shapes the ways in which male police officers relate to female members of the public, female colleagues and gendered crimes. At its most extreme, the 'organizational, structural and cultural environment' (Kraska and Kappeler, 1995, p. 97) of the police both legitimizes and facilitates acts of sexual violence against female members of the public. Furthermore, legislation can be viewed as supporting sexist cultural police practices. Skolnick describes how the police officers that he studied operated under a formal order entitled the 'Venereal Disease Quarantine Procedure' that empowered officers to quarantine prostitutes, those associated with brothels and anyone engaging in a 'lewd or lascivious' (1994, p. 105) manner. Furthermore, in the jurisdiction where he undertook his research, the district attorney's office introduced a policy recommending that every woman arrested for prostitution offences should undergo medical tests for venereal disease and, consequently, could be quarantined for up to eight days in the local jail. In practice, holding rates varied greatly, with most officers complying with the requirement only in around 25 per cent of cases, although one officer in Skolnick's sample quarantined in 48 per cent of arrests. In England and Wales, similar powers were available under the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 (Brogden, Jefferson and Walklate, 1988; Emsley, 1991; Rawlings, 2002) to protect unsuspecting men from contracting sexually transmitted diseases by subjecting women to physical examination by medical staff. Both the legislation and its implementation have been criticized on a number of grounds. First, the legislation can be considered sexist and encouraging of stereotypical views of women (Brogden, Jefferson and Walklate, 1988). Second, the problematic relationship between prostitutes, as low-level but permanent suspects, and the law means that police discretion will lead to differentiations of enforcement and therefore to uneven police intervention (Brogden, Jefferson and Walklate, 1988). Third, the use of these degrading powers against working-class women (many of whom were not prostitutes) was considered an arbitrary application of powers designed to humiliate on the whim of an officer's suspicion (Emsley, 1991). Finally, accusations began to surface that officers were waiving their powers in return for payment from prostitutes.///// The historical treatment of female members of the public may be considered to provide a partial explanation of more contemporary expressions of the gendering of the police occupational culture, especially in the case of female victimization. A fundamental stereotypical classification within the police officer's 'working personality' is that of the 'woman as the victim', and this tends to reinforce outdated perceptions of the female gender. Interestingly, MacAlister (2004) draws on research to suggest that the victim status accorded to women is dependent, to a degree, upon the type of crime that they have experienced. In other words, some victims were more likely to be accorded legitimate victim status than others. Whilst elderly female victims of crime would generally be met with unconditional sympathy, younger females of criminal offences would not, especially when the offence was either domestic or sexual in nature. Brogden (1991), in his account of policing Liverpool in the inter-war years, describes how domestic issues were regarded by communities as beyond the scope of the police and that intervention in such cases usually ended in action being taken against officers. The net effect of police non-intervention in such cases was to privilege the male over the female. Similarly, early work in the area of police occupational culture tended to focus on the impact of sexist attitudes upon police responses to allegations of sexual crime. In particular, ideas of victim precipitation and contributory negligence meant that female victims of sexual crime were often treated inappropriately. For example, descriptions presented by Smith and Gray (1983) indicate that some male officers investigating sexual offences with female victims implied that victims provoked or even enjoyed their experiences. These findings appear to have a degree of geographical universality about them, with work by Jordan (2001) in New Zealand and Temkin (1997) in Great Britain highlighting rape victims' negative perception of police responses. In the most extreme cases, Jordan (2001) likens the reporting process to a secondary victimization, intensified by a general reluctance amongst police officers to grant a sympathetic hearing except in cases of stranger rape and where physical injuries were also presented. To Smith and Gray this exposure of police officers to female victims leads to a 'devaluing of qualities associated with women' (1983, p. 91). SolvencyThe police should hire more women AND have evaluative hiring criteria to hire (men, women, anyone) less apt to escalate violenceWILLIAMS 2014 (Brandt, reporter, “Women’s advocates say police should hire more female officers”, MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) news, Dec 14, http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/12/14/female-cops, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16] At 5 feet 4 inches tall and 125 pounds, Sgt. Sarah Nasset of the St. Paul Police is not about to get into a fight if she doesn't have to.//// "I've always had to use my brains or try to talk the person down or talk them into the squad car or use other techniques to get the handcuffs on them," said Nasset, who has been a member of the department for two decades. //// She said women officers are generally not as physically imposing as their male colleagues and have to use other methods to get uncooperative suspects to follow their commands. //// In a time of increased tensions between police and communities, some women's advocates say police departments nationwide could benefit from that approach. With that in mind, they say the gender of police officers also needs to be part of the discussion that is occurring in many cities following the recent deaths of two unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers in Missouri and New York. //// Grand jury decisions not to indict the officers involved touched off a nationwide debate about race and policing. Some say research and anecdotal evidence show female officers are much less likely than male officers to use excessive force. //// "The research shows that, overwhelmingly, women are less authoritarian in their approach to policing," said Katherine Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "They are much better at defusing a potentially violent confrontation before it becomes violent." //// Spillar, who said police departments should also hire more women officers, cites a2002 study (PDF) conducted by the National Center for Women in Policing, a division of the Foundation. //// Researchers found that in several big city police departments, female officers were several times less likely than male officers to be named in excessive force complaints and lawsuits. //// In Minneapolis, which was not part of the study, officer conduct lawsuits have cost taxpayers more than $21 million over the last 11 years. //// MPR News examined court documents related to more than 50 officer conduct lawsuits settled since 2010. Only three of those cases involved women officers accused of using excessive force. //// MPR News also examined 398 "use of force" reports filed by Minneapolis police officers last year. Those reports are required whenever an officer uses physical restraint, chemical irritants, and electric shock devices like Tasers or firearms. In the reports that identified officers, about 13 percent involved female officers using force — slightly less than the percentage of women on the force. Officers rarely indicated the type of force used in the public portion of the reports. //// Chief Janee Harteau, the city's first female police chief, has said she wants to see more women on the police force. The most recent city data show women officers make up 15 percent of the force. //// A 2008 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics puts that at about average for U.S. police departments with more than 100 officers. Women make up 11 percent of the state's 10,000 licensed law enforcement officers, according to the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association. //// Nasset, president of the Minnesota Association of Women Police, said she favors seeing more women join police forces, but that won't guarantee great policing. She said gender and racial diversity among the ranks is crucial, but there are other factors departments should consider when hiring. //// "If you just start hiring women, the use of force isn't going to go down," she said. "I think maybe we need to start changing our hiring criteria because there's men out there too, that are just as compassionate and not wanting to get involved in fights first. They like to use their brains before their muscles." //// In Minneapolis, police department leaders and city elected officials believe body cameras will help reduce incidents where officers use force ranging from physical restraint all the way to use of firearms. In addition to using cameras, some police leaders are focusing on training officers to do more to calm potentially volatile situations. //// Nasset said some women are just as willing as men to get into fights, but she said they are pretty rare. //// The perception that officers have to be big, tough and aggressive, Nasset said, can discourage more women from wanting to become police officers. But she said use of force is a very small part of police work. Download 1 Mb. Share with your friends:
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