NCJ Number
141935
Journal
Women and Criminal Justice Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: (1992) Pages: 3-36
Date Published
1992
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This article traces the origin, rationale, and manifestations of police work by women from 1910 through 1940 and explains why policing by women waned after 1940.
Abstract
During the early 20th Century, white middle-class women stretched the female gender role prescriptions of late Victorian culture to include specialized police work for women. Women reformers drew upon 19th Century notions of women's differences from men, such as women's moral superiority and greater capacity to nurture, to argue that women could perform certain police tasks better than men; they reasoned, for example, that only policewomen should handle cases involving children and women, because only women are capable of providing the nurturing and guidance required for these clients. This reasoning became the basis for a female-gendered model of police work known as the crime prevention model. The three major tenets of this model were that police work in its highest form is social; that crime prevention is the most important function of the police; and that women are inherently better than men at preventing crime. The campaign for women police under the crime prevention model roughly spanned the years between 1910 and 1940 and involved such issues as the appropriate uniform for policewomen, a separate police administrative structure for policewomen, and male and female officers' attitudes toward one another. In the 1930's, however, a male-gendered model of police work, the crime control model, emerged and reaffirmed the superiority of "male" characteristics and values in police work. The crime control model still dominates American police departments today. 82 notes