Policewomen and Equality

Although the foundations of today’s police service were laid with the introduction of Peel’s ‘New Police’ in 1829, it was not until after the end of the First World War that the first women were officially recognised as police officers. These early years of women in policing are revealing not only for the strength of feeling characterised by ‘the grudging admission of a limited number of female officers’,¹ but also because they demonstrate the origin of the sexual division of labour which has in a large part persisted at least up until the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act. It was during these first years of the women police that their caring, nurturing and feminine role as ‘moral guardians’ to children and to fellow members of the weaker sex was established. Acceptance of even this restricted contribution to policing initially met with hostility and resentment, not least from the Police Federation who were ‘jealous of the introduction of women into a traditionally male occupation’.² Indeed, the more recent debate which surrounded the inclusion of the police service within the Sex Discrimination Act was reminiscent of this earlier struggle to establish a role for women in policing.

This study has its origins in a previous research project, directed by the author, during which attitudes towards policewomen were surveyed as part of a more extensive inquiry into police—public relationships¹ and police officers’ attitudes towards organisational aspects of the police service.² One general finding, supported and corroborated by informal observations and discussions with police officers, was that the attitudes of many male officers (and, indeed, some female officers) remain coloured by their limited views about the role of policewomen; views which often reflect their more general attitudes towards women in society.

Until integration, the separate organisational arrangements which governed the employment of women police officers meant that in effect a quota system was operated such that women constituted only a small proportion (approximately 5 per cent) of the overall police workforce. The major consequence of the Sex Discrimination Act was that policewomen’s departments were integrated into the main stream of policing thus removing the existing restriction on their numbers.

The earlier examination of recruitment amply demonstrates the way in which local autonomy and the consequent discretion allowed in recruitment and selection can generate informal organisational practices which circumvent the equal opportunities legislation. The effect of this is, as we have seen, to restrict the number of women joining the service. This chapter is concerned with what happens to those men and women who do become police officers, and examines the experience of doing ‘the job’.

In Chapter 6 we shall be examining the way in which men and women develop their careers in policing. We will be interested in seeing whether or not their career patterns are similar and, if not, how they are different and why. As we saw in the last chapter on the working experiences of policewomen, the reality of integration is that there are substantial qualitative differences in the kinds of duties women are assigned to. On this basis alone, it seems reasonable to suppose that these differences might well influence the kind of career choices open to or made by policewomen.

Alongside the day-to-day experiences in the working lives of police officers, another aspect of the ‘reality’ of police work is the relative way in which careers develop for women and men officers. In the police service, the patterns of career development are an inevitable function of the ‘one point of entry’ philosophy discussed in relation to recruitment. As we have seen, not only does this aim to recruit individuals who are capable of attaining chief officer rank, there is a need for select people who will remain at the ‘sharp end’ of policing for all of their career. For these people patterns of career development will reflect different personal requirements, such as job enrichment and enhancement, whereas for the relatively few officers who do want and achieve promotion, career patterns will have a different emphasis.

This chapter attempts to draw together the various beliefs and attitudes about women in policing which produce, sustain and encourage the differential treatment to which they are subjected in spite of the equal opportunities legislation. As the analysis of recruitment, deployment and careers illustrates, the practices to which these attitudes give rise have substantial consequences for the modern policewoman’s role, her opportunities and her aspirations.

In the preceeding chapters we have discussed the implications of the Sex Discrimination Act for the police service as translated into formal organisational policy and the structural and organisational changes which resulted. By examining the recruitment, deployment and careers of policemen and women, we have been able to compare the effects of formal policy with the consequences of a series of informal practices for the role women are able to fulfil within the police service. What is clear from this analysis is that the behaviour ‘prescribed’ by the equal opportunities legislation is not reflected in the attitudes of the majority of policemen and that, in reality, informal practices which more closely follow these attitudes have a major impact on the working lives of policewomen.