History of Women in Policing
A History of Women in Policing
These women were motivated by a sense that women activists contributed
a positive, feminine approach to addressing society's ills. Throughout
the United States, women were hired to protect and administer to
incarcerated women and juveniles. In 1845, New York City officials
hired two women to work as matrons in the city's two jails after
the American Female Moral Reform Society campaigned for the matron
positions to be created. They hoped the police would hire matrons
for the police stations as well; however the police department itself
blocked this. Mary Owens received the rank of policeman from the
Chicago Police Department in 1893. She was a widow whose husband
had been an officer for the department. Occasionally a department
would employ widows as a type of death benefit for their husbands.
Early on police departments seldom offered death benefits and hiring
widows was a way of compensating them. Mary Owens worked for thirty
years for the department; she assisted on cases involving women
and children. She was the first woman to receive arrest powers.
In 1905 Lola Baldwin was given police powers and put in charge of
a group of social workers in order to aid the Portland, Oregon Police
Department during the Lewis and Clark Exposition. She was the first
woman to work as a sworn police officer in the United States. City
leaders felt that some measures had to be taken to protect the "moral
safety" of the young women of Portland. Along this same direction
the city in 1908 created the Department of Public Safety for the
Protection Young Girls and Women, making Baldwin the director of
the program.
1910 - 1920
Alice Stebbin Wells was the first woman to be called a policewoman;
she joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1910. There has
been some disagreement as to who is more accurately referred to
as the "first woman police officer" in the U.S. Several
historians have described Wells as the first policewoman in the
country, however others have argued that Baldwin should be considered
the first policewoman. Part of the difficulty in asserting a "first"
is that from the onset, the job description for women officers has
been varied and has overlapped with duties we now consider to be
social work rather than law enforcement. Matrons, social workers,
and women working for private organizations all worked in positions
of some authority for the moral betterment of society. None of these
women had the same status as the men working as police officers.
These women did push to get opportunities for women wanting a career
in law enforcement, and their efforts made inroads in the struggle
toward women's equality. In 1915, the International Association
of Policewomen was created in an effort to help organize a broad
base of support for women choosing a career in policing. Throughout
the 1910s and 1920s Americans widely accepted the idea that women's
inherent nurturing qualities should be focused on fixing societal
problems associated with moral weakness. As a result, numerous women's
bureaus were started up across the country in police stations. These
bureaus worked on cases relating to women and children, such as
young runaways, shoplifting, and prostitution.
1930 - 1940
In the 1930s with the Great Depression came changes in how employment
was popularly viewed, and women's empoyment suffered because of
this. A married woman with a job was seen as wrongfully taking a
job away from a man who needed it to support his family. Women were
always assumed to be on their way to getting married, if they were
not already married, and therefore not needing a job. As jobs became
more scarce, women's career aspirations suffered. This time period
also saw a change in how law enforcement officers perceived their
social role. In the mid-1930s the FBI was formed, and law enforcement
officers began to project a role of "combatant of crime,"
turning away from the idea that police should work as social agents
against moral decline or destitution.
World War II brought changes to policing personnel. More women
were hired during the war, but most of these women were confined
to auxiliary work. The women that joined the police force during
this period were there to assist new men employed, who could not
join the military, in their duties . So women worked as dispatchers
or clerical workers within the departments, whereas men still had
patrol duties and worked as the crime fighters. Women worked primarily
as either helpers to the men or they worked with children and young
women. The role that women police officers originally filled as
social workers still strongly defined how women were used in the
police force.
After World War II
The 1950s saw a doubling of the number of women in law enforcement
in the United States. Although the overall number of women making
up law enforcement officers remained relatively low, the 1950s saw
a marked increase in the number of women officers. Perhaps even
more encouraging, the 1950s and early 1960s for some women brought
about a change in how women police officers saw their advancement
in the profession. There was a new push to advance women in the
profession through integration with the men. Some of the younger
working-class women wanted to work in the same departments with
men, doing the same work. This time period saw the re-establishment
of the International Association of Women Police and an increased
enthusiasm for the profession as a career distinct from that of
social worker. All these changes led to greater demands for equal
treatment and opprotunities for women police officers, and in 1968
two women from the Indianapolis Police department were allowed to
go on patrol duty just as the men got to. This was the beginning
of a change in policing that would have a dramatic effect on women
in law enforcement everywhere. The women's movement as well as advances
in the law helped to change how women were able to excel on the
police force throughout the 70's and 80's. In 1972 Title VII of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act was expanded to include public agencies
and as a result police departments were prohibited by law from discriminating
against women in hiring, recruiting, promotions, and working conditions.
Also at this time two laws, the Revenue Sharing Act and the Crime
Control Act, both concentrated on withholding funds from departments
that discriminated. From 1960 to 1980 the percentage of women in
police agencies doubled and the greater numbers brought greater
opportunities and challenges. From the 70's into the 90's women
in law enforcement agencies have worked for an equal role in all
facets of policing, on patrol, in command positions, and in promoting
and recruiting officers. In 1985 Penny Harrington became the first
woman to be named Chief of Police for a major city, Portland, Oregon,
and in Atlanta, Georgia in 1994 Beverly J. Harvard became the first
African American woman to be made Chief of Police for a large city.
These accomplishments are a strong testament to the courage and
perseverance that women have shown throughout the history of women
in policing.
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