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Violence as a foundational element of police work is continuously reaffirmed and justified through police labour as ‘violence workers’ (Seigel, 2018). Hiring more female police officers has recently been seen as a way to reduce police violence. However, would employing more female officers change the relationship between policing and violence? Arguments in favour of more female police tend to rely on stereotypical understandings of gender, emphasising that women are naturally less aggressive and more likely to be caring and compassionate, often obscuring the violence enacted by female police officers in doing so. Female officers may be more likely to engage in violence out of necessity due to police culture and occupational norms around the use of force. Examining female police across countries such as the United States, Nigeria and Slovenia, this chapter establishes female police violence as a broader pattern, reflects on how female officers participate in police violence and addresses the extent to which masculinised police culture structures the expression of police violence. This chapter concludes with a discussion of why hiring more female police officers is not an adequate solution for reducing police violence, as police officers enact and are complicit in violence, regardless of gender.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of policewomen to determine the extent to which female officers face resistance and obstacles to police work, to examine the coping mechanisms female officers utilized to overcome impediments encountered, and to establish common themes in female officers' success stories of acceptance and integration.

Owing to the difficulty in accessing female officers, the current research utilizes in‐depth qualitative interviews through snowball sampling. This methodology provided a rich sample of tenured female officers' experiences to explore resistance and integration.

The findings suggest despite early occupational experiences of sexual harassment, discrimination, and disrespect, after long tenures, female officers do achieve acceptance in police work. Female officers are holding high civil service ranks in police agencies and achieving new “firsts” every day, including breaking into stereotypically masculine assignments.

As police departments nationwide are having difficulties maintaining recruitment standards and full rosters, the current study can provide insight into the obstacles women face when joining police agencies and methods to alleviate these impediments, revealing an under‐recruited population for police agencies nationwide.

This study extends past literature by: examining female officers' experiences in a variety of agencies previously ignored in the literature; analyzing the tenure of the officers' careers to determine the onset and desistance of female officers' experiences with resistance and acceptance; and suggesting women do survive and, in some instances, thrive in an “all boys club.”

The purpose of this paper is to assess if in viewing tense, potentially stigmatizing, police-civilian interactions, people bring their own gendered and racial biases, as they form perceptions of officers' use of identity management (IM) strategies, as they relate to officers' competence, warmth and appropriateness of actions.

In two experimental studies, the authors investigate how the IM strategies used by female and racial minority officers impact officers' ratings of competence, warmth and appropriateness of actions. Utilizing a 2x2x4 design, the authors manipulate officer gender (race), civilian gender (race) and IM strategy used by the officer in a news article describing a police-civilian interaction.

Not all IM strategies established positive perceptions of officers. Gender and race effects were observed in how officers were seen when they were involved in a tense interaction with a civilian. Female officers were perceived as more appropriate in their actions than male officers. However, Black, female officers were rated as both less warm and appropriate in their actions than White, female officers.

Although policing is seen as a tainted profession, officers' use of IM strategies is understudied. By taking a novel lens of stigmatization and IM strategies as they relate to policing, the authors contribute to how officers may manage their identities as they cope with the stigmatized views of their occupation. Findings have implications for the diversification of law enforcement personnel, as well as building trust and legitimacy between officers and the communities they serve.

The current research seeks to examine whether officer gender influences the decision to arrest, and whether correlates of officer decision making vary across gender.

Data on police‐public encounters were systematically collected by performing social observations of police officers. Multivariate models were estimated to examine the correlates of arrest for all encounters, encounters involving male officers, and encounters involving female officers. Results were compared and contrasted across officer gender.

Gender has little direct impact on the arrest decision; however, some variation exists depending on citizens' race, gender and demeanor. The most noteworthy differences were observed based upon whether officer actions are conducted in the presence of other members of the organization, and where these other members are in the organizational hierarchy. Female officers were significantly more likely to arrest when observed by supervisors, yet less likely to arrest in the presence of peers. The visibility to other organizational members conditions the decision to arrest differently for female officers.

The current research is limited to examining only the decision to arrest. Other discretionary choices made during police‐public encounters are not explored.

Results have implications for the examination of how social control is exercised across gender, and has implications for how organizations evaluate officer performance.

This research expands the understanding of the influence of officer gender on arrest decision.

The purpose of this paper is to compare Taiwanese male and female cadets’ attitudes toward women in policing. Specifically, this study assesses whether female and male recruits differ in: their assessment of women in policing; and their preferred roles of women in policing.

Surveys were conducted with 438 cadets (229 males and 209 females) who received recruitment training at the Taiwan Police College in 2011. This methodology provided a rich sample to explore police recruits’ attitudes toward women in policing.

Although male cadets had reservations about females’ capability and physical strength in handling certain aspects of police work, they supported women being assigned to equal or similar duties as men upon entry into the police force. Compared to male cadets, female cadets were more likely to perceive females as being competent as males and thus adequate for police work. Nevertheless, female cadets were reluctant to embrace women's integration into police work, which might require them to perform duties similar to or the same as those of men, such as patrol.

It should be noted that the survey in the current study was conducted while recruits were going through training at the police college. The authors cannot rule out the possibility that surveys conducting under this type of circumstances may result in socially desirable responses. Future study should include surveys with cadets at different stages of their training (before, between, and at the end of the training) to further examine if the levels of recruits’ receptiveness to gender integration change over time.

This finding highlights the importance of equipping female recruits with mental preparation and physical skills. The training at the academy should prepare cadets with the required skills to serve as patrol officers to boost their confidence. Equally important is to provide suitable training to help cadets raise stress awareness and develop coping mechanisms.

Most studies conducted in the past have mainly focussed on police officers’ perceptions of women in policing. Only a handful of studies examine future police recruits’ attitudes toward women in policing, and most of these studies are conducted in western countries. A better understanding of police recruits’ attitudes toward women in policing in a non-western cultural setting can provide insight into theoretical and policy perspectives related to these issues.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how receptive police officers are to having women as partners and supervisors at work in a cross-national context. Specifically, it compares male and female police officers’ views on women in policing along three dimensions in Dubai and Taipei: perceived efficacy of women in policing; receptiveness of women at work (as partners and supervisor); and perceived women’s role in police work.

Surveys (with the same instrument) were conducted with 622 officers (344 male and 278 female officers) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and 391 officers (297 male and 94 female officers) in Taipei, Taiwan. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were employed to compare male and female officers’ views on women in policing in both countries.

It was found that female officers (in Dubai and Taipei) were more likely than their male colleagues to see women as capable and effective in performing police duties. Compared to their colleagues in Taiwan, the Emirati male and female officers were more likely to be supportive of women’s restricted role in policing. Dubai male officers were less likely to be receptive to working at a unit with a female as their supervisor in comparison to their female colleagues in both countries.

Although this study provides important information from a cross-national perspective, caution should be taken while interpreting these findings. The gender roles embedded in Islamic cultures seem to explain Dubai officers’ favorable attitudes toward women’s restricted role in policing. Future studies should incorporate in-depth interviews to explain why officers in Dubai prefer women’s restricted roles in policing.

The statistical analyses show that officers with higher levels of confidence not only held more positive attitudes toward women in policing, but also were more receptive to having women as their partners and supervisors. It suggests that confident officers would be more open-minded and welcome the entry of women into police work. By offering training courses that enhance officers’ work confidence, police organizations in both countries might well cultivate a welcoming work environment for women.

If police organizations in Taiwan and the UAE instill cultures with an emphasis less on masculine traits than on collaborative style, male officers might free themselves from traditional gender norms and become more welcoming to women who work in policing.

Previous scholarly efforts on examining different areas of women in policing have mainly focused on police officers in western countries, leaving a relative scarcity of information about how officers perceive women’s role in policing in the other parts of the globe. Female officers have to work hand in hand with male officers in policing. To enhance the efficiency of deployment and cohesion of work relationship among male and female officers, it is important to understand how male officers perceive women’s roles in policing and how receptive they are to having women as partners. Understanding their perceptions from both sides can help administrations initiate effective training and educational programs.

This study aims to examine gender issues in a sample of male and female police officers in Norway.

Three gender issues were considered: perceptions of equal opportunity, possible reasons for differences in male and female career opportunities, and experiences of sexual harassment. Data were collected from 766 police officers in Norway using anonymous questionnaires, a 62 percent response rate.

Female officers indicated significantly lower levels of equal opportunity perceptions, more reasons for career opportunity differences (particularly discrimination), and more sexual harassment than did male officers. Female officers reporting lower levels of equal opportunity perceptions were less job‐satisfied, more cynical, rated their quality of leadership lower and indicated more health complaints. Female officers experiencing more sexual harassment also indicated less job satisfaction. Finally, female officers offering more reasons for career differences (particularly discrimination) reported less job satisfaction, and lower professional efficacy.

Future research needs to examine gender issues in policing in greater depth using qualitative methodology. Data collected used self‐reports ,raising the possibility of response set tendencies. Results may not generalize to other countries or other professions.

Suggestions for addressing gender issues in organizations are offered.

Provides current information on consequences of gender issues in policing in a cross‐cultural context.

This study explores the impact of work environment, work‐family conflict, and coping mechanisms on physical and psychological stresses of police officers. Using survey data from a large police department located in the New England area, we pay specific attention to analyzing similar and dissimilar results while comparing across gender groups. Our research indicates that for both gender groups, work‐family conflict (spillover) and destructive coping mechanisms are among the strongest and most consistent stressors, regardless of the measures of dependent variable employed (i.e. somatization, anxiety and depression). On the other hand, we also find divergent impact of exposures to negative work environment, camaraderie, and constructive coping mechanisms on different measures of work related stresses across the two gender groups. Implications of these convergent and divergent effects are discussed.

Gender representation in policing is an important but understudied topic. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between female representation in police departments and the acquisition of body-worn cameras (BWCs). Further, it examined how female representation influenced the reasons for acquiring BWCs.

Data were gathered from the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey and the 2016 Body-Worn Camera Supplement to the LEMAS.

Controlling for relevant organizational characteristics, findings highlight the importance of female representation in terms of the acquisition of BWCs. In addition, findings point to the effect that increased female representation has on the reasons for acquiring BWCs. Namely, agencies with a greater percentage of female patrol officers were more likely to acquire body cameras for reasons related to improving community relations, professionalism, training, reducing use of force and strengthening leadership.

This paper provides evidence of the positive influence of female representation in policing.

This paper fulfills the identified need to examine the influence of gender representation in police organizations. In addition, it advances the direction of recent research to merge large data sets in order to provide a unique look at the research questions.

Do female police recruits drop out of police education and/or leave the profession more often than men, and has this changed over time? Can gender differences be explained by the background characteristics and family obligations of the recruits?

This paper employs administrative registry data covering all individuals admitted to the police academy (1995–2010, N = 6570) and all academy recruits employed in the Norwegian police (1992–2014, N = 7301). The paper analyses the data using discrete-time logistic regression and coarsened exact matching.

The levels of dropout and attrition are generally low. However, female recruits have a somewhat greater tendency both to drop out of education and to leave the force. The gender differences are quite stable, although the percentage of female recruits has risen sharply. Family obligations do not seem to explain female attrition from the police force.

Because women tend to leave the police more often than men, further research is suggested in investigating female police recruits’ experiences. However, the relatively low level of dropout and limited gender differences also provide a reason to question whether stories of the police as a male-dominated profession not adapted to women are valid across time and in different settings.

This study provides exhaustive and detailed longitudinal data not previously available in studies of police careers. This study also tracks attrition in a period that has involved both increased numerical representation of women and changes in police culture, while accounting for other observable differences between male and female police officers. Contrary to common explanations, there is limited importance of family obligations and altered gender composition.