Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:A:American Journal of Police:Vol14.Issue2.1995:

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FEMALE POLICE OFFICERS: GENDER BIAS AND

PROFESSIONALISM

Mary Cuadrado

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Among the criteria that define a profession are the special and technical expertise, a clearly delineated and permanent membership, the overcoming of personal attitudes on the part of its members who replace their attitudes with professional ones, and the public’s acknowledgment that a field is a profession and consequently its members are professionals. Therefore, anyone who meets the qualifications should be considered a professional regardless of age, race or gender.

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Federation of Women’s Clubs) as well as civic and social hygiene associations (e.g., National Young Women, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).

The preventive-protective role of policewomen is illustrated by Odem and Schlossman’s (1991) account of the use of policewomen in Los Angeles during the beginning of the century. Policewomen were used to monitor young girls and intervene if any violated the social and sexual etiquette of the time. This task, Hale (1992) indicates, was the product of the concern the social hygiene movements had regarding the spread of venereal diseases.

In 1972, due to the expansion of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, women were permitted to enter the police force as patrol officers. Thus, the work of policewomen during the past 20 years moved from the “social worker function” to the police officer role by placing women on patrol where they are exposed to violent situations. Women moving into these traditionally male dominated roles challenge the views held by many male police officers concerning the masculine nature of police work (Milton, 1975; Johns, 1979; Balkin, 1988). Vega and Silverman (1982:32) found that 48 percent of the male officers they interviewed believed that “women should not be considered for jobs as police patrol officers” (emphasis mine). The conceptions of police work as a “man’s job” is not exclusive to male police officers. The general public has held this view as well. Bell (1982) found that citizens thought that male police officers were better in violent situations than female officers. Bell’s findings are similar to those made by other researchers such as Johns (1979) and Kennedy and Homant (1981).

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The issue of gender bias against policewomen should be of importance to police officials. Top police officials have become increasingly interested in overcoming the stereotype of the police officer as a non-professional. It is important therefore that perceived professional inadequacies due solely to gender be dealt with and resolved. Since police departments must interact with virtually all components of the criminal justice system, it is imperative that policewomen be viewed in all contexts as professional as their male counterparts.

In this study we shall look at differences in the perceptions of male and female police officers concerning appropriateness of action taken on the job, apparent knowledge of police procedures and how “professional” they appear to conduct themselves in certain situations. The main hypothesis is that policewomen will be perceived as less “professional” than male police officers.

METHODOLOGY

Sample

The sample consisted of 194 persons: 150 graduate and undergraduate students at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and 44 police officers. The students who cooperated with the study attended classes in the following disciplines: public administration, law and police science, substance abuse studies or criminal justice. The police officers in the sample were contacted by a police officer liaison. Respondents were told that their cooperation was strictly voluntary and were asked not to mark the response sheets in any way that could identify them or their department in order to assure the anonymity of their responses.

Because the sample was selected from a college of criminal justice, we were able to compare findings to those of Lieberman (1989) in a liberal arts college. In addition, this sample provides the opportunity to compare possible gender bias of uniformed officers with other persons with a criminal justice system perspective, many of who will go on to careers in criminal justice.

Instruments and Administration

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response sheet. The cover sheet reiterated the verbal instructions given to the respondents before they began. The respondents were told that the packet contained three police reports with response sheets attached to them. They were to become familiar with the response sheet, read the report, then return to the response sheet to answer the four questions related to the report and to provide their personal information consisting of age, sex, highest level of education, occupation and number of years in the occupation. This procedure was to be followed until all three response sheets had been completed.

The reports were adapted from ones created and used by Lieberman (1989) in a similar study. The reports were evaluated by police officers, who considered them an adequate representation of what may be found in actual police reports in many jurisdictions. The reports provided the description of the findings and actions taken by an officer and partner during a bank robbery, a drug arrest or a driving-while-intoxicated incident. At the top of each report the name of the officer was clearly indicated: one report was written by a policewoman (Jennifer Sharer or Kathy Gray), one by a male police officer (Timothy Gray or Edward Sharer), and, one written by an officer whose gender could not be identified (A. Pelham). Information on the date, location, time and type of incident was provided at the bottom of each report.

The respondents were asked to write the name of the officer reporting the incident in a space provided on the rating sheets. They were then to assess, using a 10 point rating scale, the three police reports — one filed by male police officers, one by policewomen, and the third by an officer whose gender could not be identified. Each respondent rated the reports on: appropriateness of action taken, good detail in description, apparent knowledge of police procedures and degree of professionalism. Although not all respondents may have been qualified to answer all of the questions with anything other than a lay person’s opinion, this should apply equally to the assessment of both female and male police officer reports.

The type of arrest assigned to the police officers was switched between packets to avoid any effects produced by associating certain type of arrests with female or male police officers (e.g., that women can handle a DWI, but not a robbery).

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Description of Sample

The unit of analysis in this paper will alternate between respondents (N=194) and rating sheets (N=388). Since the purpose of the neutral police officer was to distract from the fact that there was a male and a female police officer, the responses given for the neutral police officer were not analyzed.

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Table 1

DESCRIPTION OFSAMPLE

N %

Sex

Female 75 39

Male 119 61

194 100

Age

22 years old or less 40 21 22-27 years old 55 29 28-36 years old 49 25 37 years old or more 49 25

Mean = 30.2 193 100

Education

High School 27 14

College 145 76

Graduate School 18 10 190 100

Occupation

Law Enforcement Officer 82 46

Clerical 27 15

Management/Professional 36 20

Blue Collar 8 5

Full time student/unemployed 25 14 178 100

Years in Occupation

One year 30 19

2-5 years 59 37

6-8 years 37 23

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Sixty-one percent of the respondents were male. The mean age of the respondents was 30 years old. Over four-fifths (86%) had some college education. (Of the remaining 27 persons, 19 were college freshman whose highest grade completed was 12 years of high school.) Approximately half (46%)were police or corrections officers and the mean number of years for all occupations was 6.42 (see Table 1).

FINDINGS

The first item analyzed is the total score obtained for the male and the female officer reports. For this task a variable of the mean of the total of all scores was created and dichotomized into “High” and “Low.” As shown in Table 2A, respondents tended to rate female officers higher than their male counterparts (57% vs. 47% respectively).

Contrary to expected findings, for each indicator the mean score for female officers was higher than for the males – a finding contrary to similar studies of gender bias using similar techniques (Goldberg, 1968; Kaschak, 1978; Friend, Kalin and Giles, 1979; Lieberman, 1989). Furthermore, the difference in the “Professionalism” score was statistically significant. The relative lack of bias found in this study may be attributed to the fact that the sample consists of people who are part of and/or familiar with the criminal justice system and the professional status that women occupy. They not only have had experiences with women in the criminal justice system (i.e., police and corrections officers, judges, etc.), but may have become sensitized to the issues of sex bias in police departments. In addition, evaluating actions of policewomen as “Professional” does not necessarily challenge the idea of police being “man’s work.” On the contrary, it may allow for policewomen to continue to be accepted although, differently than their male counterparts.

Table 2A

TOTALEVALUATIONSCORES BYSEX OFPOLICEOFFICER INREPORT

Score Female Officer Male Officer

N % N %

Low (1-7) 84 43 103 53

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The scores given to the officers in these reports were then examined according to the characteristics of the respondents’ age, gender, and occupation in order to determine if these characteristics are related to bias against females in law enforcement.

Age

Age appears to have an effect on the score respondents will assign to officer reports. Older respondents (over the age of 27) were less likely to give high scores to officers, male or female, than younger respondents – 46 percent and 57 percent, respectively. Furthermore, when examining the scores assigned to reports we found that the mean scores assigned to the male officers decreases for each age category, except in the “37+” age category where the mean score for male officers rose sharply American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 2 1995 155

Table 2B

EVALUATIONSCOREMEANS FOROFFICER INREPORT FOR ALL RESPONDENTS(N=388)

2-Tail

Mean T Value Probability

Appropriateness of Action

Male Officer 7.00

Female Officer 7.26 0.81 0.421

Good Detail

Male Officer 7.71

Knowledge of Procedure

Male Officer 6.48

Professionalism

Male Officer 6.78

Female Officer 7.49 2.36 0.019*

Average All Evaluation Score

Male Officer 6.99

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(see Table 3). Only among those in age category 22-27 was there a statistically significant difference in scoring.

Gender

Examination of the data by the sex of the respondent shows that female respondents were more likely to assign higher scores than did male respondents (61% vs 46% respectively). This difference was found to be significant at the .001 level.

Table 4 below shows that female respondents assigned higher mean scores than the male respondents, but they did so for both the female and male officer reports. Therefore, the responses cannot be attributed to female respondents favoring female officers in the report. Although, the female respondents rated female officer reports higher than male officer reports the differences are too small to be significant. However, the finding that women respondents consistently gave higher scores than male respondents may reflect a traditional female deference to authority translated into not wanting to be too critical of actions described as being taken by police officers regardless of the officer’s

Table 3

TOTALEVALUATIONSCOREMEANS FOROFFICERS INREPORTS BYAGE OFRESPONDENTS

2-Tail

Mean T Value Probability

Under 22 Years of Age

Male Officer 7.61

22-27

Male Officer 6.75

Female Officer 7.84 2.42 0.017*

28-36

Male Officer 6.49

37+ Years of Age

Male Officer 7.26

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Table 4

EVALUATIONSCOREMEANS FOROFFICERS INREPORT BYSEX OF THERESPONDENTS

Female Respondents Male Respondents

(N=148) (N=238)

Mean T Value 2-Tail Mean T Value 2-Tail

Male Officer 7.63 6.62

Female Officer 8.01 0.90 0.372 6.79 0.40 0.693

Good Detail

Female Officer 7.85 –0.19 0.849 7.67 0.28 0.780

Female Officer 7.59 0.48 0.633 6.50 1.30 0.196

Professionalism

Female Officer 7.84 0.80 0.424 7.28 2.32 0.021*

Female Officer 7.81 0.60 0.551 7.08 1.40 0.162

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described as being taken by police officers regardless of the officer’s gender.

Of interest is the finding that male respondents consistently scored female officer reports higher than male officer reports, with the largest (and statistically significant) difference being in the male respondents’ scoring in the “Professionalism” category. This may be due to the fact that women’s bias issues are often presented in the mass media as well as in the classrooms of a large portion of the sample. Thus, female discrimination issues may be salient in the minds of male respondents in particular who may feel they must heighten their awareness to these issues in order not to be offensive to women. This “reverse bias” may be a temporary but necessary product of the anti-discrimination campaigns that feminists and other groups have conducted for the past decade to help obtain equality for women on the job. The awareness of discrimination against women may cause some males to compensate for underlying long-held views of women as inferior in “male” roles by viewing female competence on the police force as higher than males, in particular in categories that do not define police work through use of physical strength.

Occupation

Responses from law enforcement and non-law enforcement individuals were also analyzed. Respondents in law enforcement were far less likely to assign high scores than those in other occupations. Overall high scores assigned by law enforcement respondents was 37 percent compared to professional 54 percent, clerical 67 percent and students 70 percent. These differences were found to be statistically significant at the .0001 level. This difference may be due to the fact that law enforcement respondents more accurately evaluate the actions taken by officers in the reports than other respondents.

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Table 5

EVALUATIONSCOREMEANS FOROFFICERS INREPORT BYRESPONDENT’SOCCUPATION

Law enforcement (N=164) Other (N=191)

Area of Evaluation Mean T Value 2-Tail Mean T Value 2-Tail

Female Officer 5.95 –0.28 0.780 8.28 1.40 0.162

Good Detail

Female Officer 6.94 –1.07 0.205 8.52 2.54 0.012*

Female Officer 5.60 –0.02 0.983 8.02 1.93 0.055

Professionalism

Female Officer 6.63 0.95 0.346 8.17 2.17 0.031*

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Are these higher scores for the female officer reports due to a larger proportion of women in the “Other” occupation group? Table 6 shows that respondents did not tend to favor those in their own gender group. Both female and male respondents in the “Other” occupation category consistently assigned higher scores to the female officers, while those in law enforcement assigned mixed scores, regardless of the sex of the respondent. It is interesting to note that males in “Law Enforcement” did not significantly discriminate against the female officers in the report. This may be an indication that the efforts made at many police departments and academies throughout the country may be having an effect on how policewomen are viewed by their colleagues. On the other hand, males in “Other” occupations assigned statistically significant higher scores to females in the “Good Detail” and “Professionalism” categories.

Female law enforcement respondents assigned a higher total score to male officer reports than they did to male officer reports (6.44 vs. 6.30). However, there was only a .02 mean difference assigned by male respondents. This might suggest that because women are more recent arrivals to patrol duty, many female officers may still look to the more experienced officers for guidance (who are more likely to be males).

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that policewomen are perceived as less professional when compared to their male counterparts. Based on findings from past studies in which comparable work by females had been scored lower than males it was hypothesized that female officer reports would be scored lower in the categories of appropriateness of action, use of good detail, apparent knowledge of police procedure and professionalism than male police officer reports. The data indicate that this is not the case. Female officer reports were consistently scored higher than male officer reports, although, most of the differences in scores where not statistically significant. This may be an indication of acceptance of females in the role of law enforcement officers.

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Table 6

EVALUATIONSCOREMEANS FOROFFICERS INREPORT BYOCCUPATION(CONTROLLING FORSEX OFRESPONDENT) FEMALE RESPONDENTS

Law enforcement (N=32) Other (N=104)

Area of Evaluation Mean T Value 2-Tail Mean T Value 2-Tail

Female Officer 6.43 0.38 0.705 8.42 0.90 0.370

Good Detail

Female Officer 6.31 –1.31 0.267 8.32 1.15 0.252

Female Officer 5.75 –0.14 0.890 7.96 0.44 0.660

Professionalism

Female Officer 6.69 0.21 0.835 8.15 0.90 0.370

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Area of Evaluation Mean T Value 2-Tail Mean T Value 2-Tail

Female Officer 5.74 –0.64 0.521 7.93 0.69 0.493

Good Detail

Female Officer 7.09 –0.31 0.754 8.75 2.58 0.012*

Female Officer 5.56 0.05 0.962 7.55 1.58 0.117

Professionalism

Female Officer 6.51 0.77 0.444 8.00 1.99 0.050*

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find significant bias against female officers, even among male uniformed officer respondents. On the contrary, policewomen were consistently found to be more “professional” than their male counterparts. Although this is a promising finding for policewomen who have been consistently discriminated against based on their gender, it should also be a message to police departments that police officers of different genders are not yet viewed as equal.

This study has also shown that when evaluations of officer competence are based on professionalism dimensions rather than confrontational issues, bias against women does not appear since the main focus of the questions is not on violent situations an officer may encounter, as was done by previous studies (Vega and Silverman, 1982; Bell, 1982). Evaluation variables based on potentially violent situations promotes the belief that police officers are constantly in violent confrontation and that perhaps women could not do the job as well. Violence, although an inevitable occurrence in the life of a law enforcement official, hardly occupies the majority of an officer’s working time. Besides, when violence is present female officers have been shown to abate possible confrontations. Police departments may benefit if the public, in particular, were made more aware of these facts.

During the last decade police departments throughout the country have begun to promote a professional image. Female officers can be a great asset in the pursuit of this goal, for they may help dispel the myth of the “brute force” requirement in order to do an effective job as an officer. Police departments must be cautious, though, not to present two separate images: one as a “brute force” composed of men and another of a “professional force” composed of women. Further studies are needed to monitor if the changing image of the police department may be now creating discrimination against male officers.

The findings in this study may be an encouraging indication that existing perceptions of the police force can be changed through increased recruitment of women, gender sensitivity training provided at the academies, and higher level of education. These may pay off for police departments as they help them achieve their goals to be viewed as professionals, in particular among those working within the Criminal Justice System. Now that many police departments are trying to move toward community policing the full acceptance of the female officer by these departments as well as by the public is essential.

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NOTE

The author wishes to thank Joel D. Lieberman, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona for allowing the modification and use of his forms for this study.

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