Women in law enforcement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Women in uprightness enforcement - Essay ExampleAccording to (Jon Felperin, 2005) in 1845, the first women to be hired by the New York City Police Department were called matrons. In 1985, penny Harrington of the Portland Oregon Police Department became the first fe phallic Chief of Police, Today, once the last bastion of male domination in the workplace, police organizational attitudes ar finally beginning to change. And yet serious problems cool it remain.In 2004, women accounted for only 12.7 percent of all sworn law enforcement positions in large agencies and the tropes are declining. The percentage of sworn female officers in smaller agencies is even lower in spite of women comprising at 46.5 percent of the entire labor force.There could be many possible reasons for the decline in the number of women pursuing careers in law enforcement. Although research shows that women can be just as effective as men, uneven hiring practices, pickaxe processes and recruitment policies k eep the number of women artificially low. Often women are screened out of the selection process early on as a result of certain entry level tests that upgrade upper body strength or previous life experience, such(prenominal) as military service. just about women neer even consider a career in law enforcement to begin with, due to their mistaking of the nature of the job, and the aggressive and authoritarian images portrayed in the media. Once hired, however, women still face discrimination, sexual harassment, or even peer intimidation, and they often lack the necessary role models or mentors to help them move up the ranks. Many never even take promotional exams, giving first priority to family or individual(prenominal) relationships. All of this thwarts any efforts to recruit and retain more women, and is, in part, why numbers remain dead(a) or continue to decline. And yet, recent changes in policing philosophy, emphasizing problem solving and community over intervention, shed brought to light glaring inefficiencies and injustices. Widespread excessive force and corruption scandals, overwhelmingly attributed to male officers, are be cities millions of dollars a year in lawsuit payouts. Because female officers utilize a different policing style and blaspheme less on physical force and more on communications skills, potentially violent confrontations and are less likely to occur, or escalate into excessive force situations. Thus citizen complaints, or civil liabilities, are substantially less likely to occur. The implications of not having a representative number of female officers are clear. The under-representation of women at all levels in the modern police agency negatively impacts the culture and operational efficiency of law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Given the many difficult challenges facing modern agencies, the need to hire more women has never been more urgent. Women in law enforcementLaw enforcement has thus traditionally been regarded as a mans job, and, while women induce now been on patrol for three decades, many policemen still hold highly negative views of policewomen such as that they are physically incapable, insufficiently aggressive, too emotional, mentally weak, naive, and incapable of gaining the respect of citizens. Research has shown, however, that this is not the case policewomen are as capable as their male counterparts, and, in many instances, better accommodate for police