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Arguments for and against women in law enforcement
Discrimination of women in the police force
Women in law enforcement
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Although women are mistreated in law enforcement, they make a big percentage of the law enforcement community. They could care less about the way people look at them in the field they work at, however, they still wake up in the morning and get the job done without asking for anything. Despite all the negative things in this field, they make a huge difference. But why is women treated in such a different way than men in this field? Are men and women hired and promoted with equal consideration? This paper will review women in law enforcement today and their evolution into the field. The research discusses obstacles that today exist for their hiring, promotion, and the way they are being treated once inside. Policewomen have made a big progress in their numbers across the nation, but law enforcement is still typically seen as a male dominated profession. For women who have chosen to make this field their career, barriers exist that some people say are discriminatory practices. Women police officers have been in the police field for over thirty years. There has been a …show more content…
Research shows that women in law enforcement are few and their numbers decrease as they try to move into command ranks. The National Center for Women & Policing reported that women accounted for only 12.7% of all sworn law enforcement positions in large agencies that had 100 or more sworn officers. In 1990, women made up 9% of total sworn officers. The current status and percentage is only 4% higher than in 1990. Women will have a hard time reaching an equal hiring rate to their male partners at this present rate. Even though research has indicated that males and females alike are capable of doing the job effectively, a potential bias in police hiring would explain the low number of women in law
...erall, I think that this interview has taught me that every law enforcement officer have a different opinion and it should be voiced. Mr. Cayette told me exactly how he felt without holding back. It was different just listening to the responses because it was said by an actual officer instead of just another ordinary person expressing how they feel. The interview also made me realize that people cannot be mad at every police officer for one police officer’s wrong doing. According to National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, “There are more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States, which is the highest figure ever. About 12 percent of those are female.” People should stop listening to the media all the time because it does convince people to hate police officers because there are many police officers in the U.S. with good intentions.
We will likely see even more changes in the near future due to the many proposals to increase the number of women and ethnic minority officers in our police forces. An example of near change is the use of a hiring quota system. Under this system there is a requirement to recruit a specified number of minority and/or women officers. This may require the modification of standards and qualifications that could discriminate against these groups in order to achieve the required quota. Although this is a future option, we can see its methods are already being implemented in the past decades abolishment of height, weight, and age restrictions.
Our society has become one that is very diverse. Law enforcement agencies (local, state, and federal) for our changing society need to include an increase representation of women and minorities, definite improvement in leadership skills, and to strengthen community policing. These are all issues of great importance, which are no longer going to be pushed aside.
Minority groups have always been underrepresented in police forces across the United States. One of the main reasons minority groups are underrepresented in police department is due to the negative interaction White officers have had with citizens of minority groups. According to McNamara and Burns (2008), members of minority groups feel police officers abuse of their authority by overstepping the boundaries of procedural laws, which dictates how the police are to use their powers. The conflicts between minorities and White officers has caused many individuals from minority groups to not be attracted to the police work. Moreover, individuals from minority groups do not apply for police work because they feel they would not be accepted in policing,
Coughenour, J. Separate and Unequal: Women in the Federal Criminal Justice System. JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014
(Swanson, Territo and Taylor, p. 2). However, in recent years some major changes have occurred in a shorter time period. Innovations in law enforcement During the past two decades, I have observed major changes in the viewpoint of society towards police officer's as the symbol of trust and dignity, the technological advances of communication and information systems in law enforcement, and the revision of selection and hiring practices for police officers. Organizational change occurs both as a result of internal and external agents (Swanson, Territo and Taylor, p. 664).
Historically, criminology was significantly ‘gender-blind’ with men constituting the majority of criminal offenders, criminal justice practitioners and criminologists to understand ‘male crimes’ (Carraine, Cox, South, Fussey, Turton, Theil & Hobbs, 2012). Consequently, women’s criminality was a greatly neglected area and women were typically seen as non-criminal. Although when women did commit crimes they were medicalised and pathologised, and sent to mental institutions not prisons (Carraine et al., 2012). Although women today are treated differently to how they were in the past, women still do get treated differently in the criminal justice system. Drawing upon social control theory, this essay argues that nature and extent of discrimination
Belva Lockwood’s legacy continues today. Not only did she open opportunities within the criminology community, but she also gave a voice to women in all areas of work. Today’s women in law enforcement, the courts system, and politics owe their careers to women like Belva Lockwood. She tirelessly paved the way for women and minorities. She would be proud to see how may influential women dominate the criminology work
This paper will show four different police departments that are currently hiring or recruiting for police officers. There will be a summary on the research found on the process used to recruit police officers. It will also show their current hiring trends and what hiring practices they have that are successful or not successful. The paper will also go over the different methods departments use to train their new officers and their values.
Women in Law Enforcement There are many stereotypes that women in the law enforcement field have to face. In order to recruit more women into policing, law enforcement agencies should attempt to overcome the idea that policing is a "male-oriented profession". This paper will cover parts of the history of women police officers, some views and stereotypes of the female officer, job related issues, life outside of the workforce and job satisfaction. It used to be that only nursing, teaching, and clerical positions were open to women. A small number of women worked as correctional officers and their assignments were usually limited to peripheral tasks.
Not only is prison ineffective in preventing reoffending in women and is expensive, it can be extremely damaging to the female’s well-being and their families. The effect that a custodial sentence has on women is arguably far worse than for men. Women are often not prepared or equipped for their life following their prison sentence; due to the fact that women are more likely to be lone parents before prison (Social Exclusion Unit, 2002), are more likely to leave prison homeless and unemployed (Wedderburn, 2000), and are more likely to lose access of their children whilst serving their sentence (Corston, 2007). Statistics from 2010 showed that around 17,000 children become separated from their mother by imprisonment (Wilks-Wiffen, 2011). This can be absolutely devastating to not only the female offender, but to their innocent children too. Moreover, due to the small number of women’s prisons, the average distance that women are sent away from their homes is around 60 miles (Women in Prison, 2013). Therefore, even if the women are lucky enough to keep in contact with their children, it can be tremendously hard to organise visitation and uphold
Prisons serve the same reason for women and men, they are also tools of social control. The imprisonment of women in the U.S. has always been a different experience then what men go through. The proportion of women in prison has always differed from that of men by a large amount. Women have traditionally been sent to prison for different reasons, and once in prison they endure different conditions of incarceration. Women incarcerated tend to need different needs for physical and mental health issues. When a mother is incarcerated it tends to play an impact on the children also. Over time the prison system has created different gender responsive programs to help with the different needs of female offenders. After being released from prison
Women bring unique skills and techniques to policing such as: compassion and understanding during undesirable and traumatic incidents. Although, women do not possess the muscles or physical strength as the male officers, they do have effective invaluable interpersonal skills. Females are viewed as threats by their male peers. Women face prejudice, peer bullying, and sometimes sexual harassment during their career in law enforcement (Criminal Justice School Info, 2014). The male officers believe that women have unfair advantages when it comes to getting promotions or advancements. In actuality, a lot of women in law enforcement are afraid to apply for higher positions due to fear of maltreatment by the male officers. Women who work in law enforcement often feel as if they must “prove themselves” beca...
The conflict between security and service functions-- and the dangerous, overcrowded conditions in these facilities intensified hostile reaction (Jurik, N.C. 1985). On an informal level there is much of a boundary between the male inmates and the women that worked in the facilities. The more overcrowded and dangerous these facilities get, the harder it may be for the women in the workplace as security. Nancy felt with such resistance in the workplace of being a female correctional officer in mens prison, women were not going to perform adequately to all of the pressure. In addition, the combination to these old hostilities with the informal rules governing advancement further limited the opportunities available to female officers (Kanter, 1977; 264). Because this specific job field is so hostile and intimidating, researchers found that women were not getting promoted because of it. Which made it harder on women to do as well as they wanted knowing they were not going to get rewarded or promoted to a higher form of
...at exactly is the process known as police recruitment and just how different it was in the 1960s from today’s day and age. In the 1960s police departments were worried about not having enough minorities and now police departments worry about not having enough qualified officers in general. If police departments can better advertise how great it is to be a police officer and how bright the future could be for a hardworking officer I think that the retention issue among police departments will decrease dramatically and the amount of qualified applicants will sky rocket. All in all police recruitment is a huge part of law enforcement agencies and if it wasn’t for recruitment and the work that goes in to getting officers field ready who knows what kind of chaos could have come from having unfit officers patrolling the streets and keeping citizens safe on a daily basis.