Kringen 2014 - Scholarship on Women and Policing

Feminist Criminology2014, Vol. 9(4) 367 –381

© The Author(s) 2014Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1557085114530772

fcx.sagepub.com

Article

Scholarship on Women and Policing: Trends and Policy Implications

Anne Li Kringen1

AbstractA systematic review of the literature on women and policing for the period of 1972 to 2012 was undertaken to determine how gender was incorporated in research and how this scholarship changed over time. The analysis indicates that the majority of research on women in policing is typically directed at understanding the role of gender in policing. The volume of published research increased over the period, but of the three major domains of research (job performance, job experience, and blocked opportunities), the majority of growth occurred in job experience domain. Blocked job opportunity research, which has important policy implications, experienced only a moderate increase. The majority of research on women in policing was found to be published in specialty academic journals including gender specialty journals and policing specialty journals. The impact of publishing primarily in these outlets is discussed.

Keywordswomen as professionals in the CJS, women, policing, evaluation, disparate treatment

Introduction

Criminological research has predominantly focused on men. Men commit more crimes, commit more serious crimes, and commit crimes with greater frequency than women (Messerschmidt, 1997; Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996). As a result, women have often been ignored in criminological research, and criminological theories have com-monly been empirically tested using male-only samples. This approach to understand-ing crime sparked feminist scholars to assert the importance of studying women

1University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA

Corresponding Author:Anne Li Kringen, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Road, West Haven, CT 06516, USA. Email: [email protected]

530772 FCXXXX10.1177/1557085114530772Feminist CriminologyKringenresearch-article2014

at Oxford University Libraries on December 26, 2014fcx.sagepub.comDownloaded from

mailto:[email protected]

http://fcx.sagepub.com/

368 Feminist Criminology 9(4)

(Chesney-Lind, 1989; Naffine, 1996). Feminist critiques illustrate that androcentric research fails to consider the impact of gender on crime and criminal justice. Importantly, feminist scholars have advocated increasing knowledge about crime and the criminal justice system through the inclusion of women rather than by ignoring men (Sharp & Hefley, 2007). These calls for change ultimately led to the emergence of the field of feminist criminology. Feminist criminology varies from mainstream criminology in a variety of ways. Because gender is a “complex social, historical, and cultural product” (Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988, p. 504), feminist criminology embraces distinct theoretical developments, epistemologies, research methods, and policy emphases that separate it from mainstream criminology (Flavin, 2001).

Beginning with the women’s movement in the 1960s, the frequency of published research on women and crime began to increase, and growth continued over the subsequent decades (Goodstein, 1992; Sharp & Hefley, 2007). However, despite the gains in the quantity of published feminist scholarship, some scholars assert that feminist criminology has failed to impact mainstream criminological thought due to a conceptual divide between feminist and mainstream criminologists. Flavin (2001) specifically addressed this issue in a publication in the Journal of Criminal Justice, by extending an invitation to other criminologists to embrace feminist scholarship in both understanding and practice. Considering such calls to action in conjunction with the increased availability of feminist work, it is clear that other factors must be limiting the transmission of knowledge about gender, crime, and criminal justice.

One possible factor concerns the way in which gender is utilized in research. Gender can be included in analyses in several different ways, and the manner of inclu-sion dictates the type of conclusions that can be drawn. Some research incorporates gender in an attempt to answer questions about how women relate to crime and crimi-nal justice. Nevertheless, other research either fails to include gender at all or includes gender as a control variable only. Failing to include gender ignores the possibility of gender differences, but including it as a control variable essentially acknowledges that women and men are different while denying that the difference is worthy of further investigation. Feminist scholars have studied the way in which gender is incorporated into research to understand this phenomenon.

Sharp and Hefley (2007) studied how women were included in the analyses of articles published in the three most highly ranked criminology journals in the United States from 2000 to 2004. Studies that did not include gender or used gender as a control variable were classified as “not female sensitive.” In contrast, studies that used such techniques as analyzing females only, including separate analyses for men and women, or using gender as a moderating variable were classified as “female sensitive” approaches. The authors found that most studies were not female sensitive with the majority of studies including gender as a control variable only, and that research published in journals with a criminal justice orientations (in con-trast to journals with criminological orientations) was less likely to use a female sensitive approach. Ultimately, the authors concluded that only 15% of studies pro-vided any real insights into how women and men differ regarding crime and



Kringen 369

criminal justice. Their research supported the conclusions from Hannon and Dufour’s (1998) comparison of changes in the use of gender in criminological research. Hannon and Dufour compared early research published in criminology journals (1974-1978) with later research (1992-1996). While the authors found that research in the later period was more likely to include women in the analyses, atten-tion to gender differences was actually greater in the earlier period as the later research was largely defined by the use of gender dummy variables included for statistical control only.

Another possible factor limiting the transmission of knowledge derived from femi-nist scholarship involves where research on women, crime, and criminal justice is published. Multiple studies have concluded that, while there have been gains in the number of feminist criminology articles, the majority of these studies are still pub-lished in specialty journals (e.g., Women and Criminal Justice, Gender and Society, Violence Against Women, Feminist Theory) (Flavin, 2001; Sharp & Hefley, 2007). In addition, scholarship on feminist criminology that has been published in mainstream journals has often been published in special issues that focused solely on women and crime. Finally, a large body of feminist criminology scholarship has been published in books rather than journals. The tendency for feminist scholarship to be published out-side of mainstream journals has been criticized as marginalizing feminist knowledge and isolating it from mainstream scholars. Flavin (2001) described the situation as feminist criminologists “holding their own dance” characterized by publishing in out-lets read primarily by other feminists, sitting on panels composed of like-minded scholars, and disseminating their knowledge through teaching specialized classes on gender.

Rationale for the Study

At the core of feminist criminology lies a commitment to research that has implica-tions for both policy and action. Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988) associated feminist criminology with the development of “a set of strategies for change” (p. 502), and some feminist scholarship research has been influential. While feminist criminologists are well known for work on violence against women, feminist research has influenced policy and practice in several other areas as well (Flavin, 2001). Feminist scholarship has highlighted the impact of the war on crime on women (Chesney-Lind, 1998); the unforeseen consequences of gender-neutral policies, such as sentencing, on women (Raeder, 1993); and the impact of civil forfeiture laws on women (Massey, Miller, & Wilhelmi, 1998) in addition to more traditional women’s issues such as the relation-ship between drug use and pregnancy (Humphries, 1999). The commonality of this research is the focus on the unique challenges faced by women in an environment of social change.

One area of substantial change for women has been greater integration into the workforce, and this change has manifested in the field of criminal justice as well. Over time, women have been integrated into various positions within the courts, correc-tional agencies, and police departments. Throughout this process, women have faced




distinct challenges within each arena. However, female integration into the policing profession has been particularly difficult due in part to the masculine hegemony of policing and a pervasive belief that the profession requires overt masculinity. These biases have served to marginalize women as they started making inroads into the pro-fession in the 1960s. Despite challenges, women were integrated into patrol alongside men during the 1970s and 1980s, and the number of women employed as police offi-cers increased for several decades. Unfortunately, this progress plateaued, and the per-centage of women in the profession has remained relatively stable for the last 15 years (Cordner & Cordner, 2011; National Center for Women and Policing [NCWP], 1999). Currently, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (2012), women make up only 11.9% of police officers in the United States. This percentage varies by depart-ment, and larger departments employ higher percentages of women. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of sworn female officers employed by large city police depart-ments rose from 12.1% to 16.3% (Reaves & Hickman, 2002). Federal law enforce-ment agencies also employ more female officers. From 1996 to 2008, the number of sworn female federal officers increased from 14.0% to 15.5% (Reaves, 2012). Despite gains in these areas, the vast majority of agencies remain overwhelmingly male, con-sisting of less than 15% women (Archbold & Schulz, 2008).

This underrepresentation of women within the policing profession has been noted as an important policy issue. The NCWP, a division of the Feminist Majority Foundation, has strongly advocated for the employment of more women as police officers in the United States. The NCWP asserts that more female officers will help reduce deviant behavior and brutality, promote the use of communication over physi-cal force, and will improve law enforcement response to certain types of crime like domestic violence. Several practitioners echo these sentiments. Theresa M. Melchionne, a former New York City Police Department (NYPD) commissioner, stated, “It is my firm conviction, as a police administrator, that women have a unique and vital role to play in American law enforcement” (Melchionne, 1967, p. 257). Despite these calls, women remain underrepresented in policing, and there is limited understanding of why this situation persists.

One limitation of research on policing is that it has been dominated by male researchers who have focused mainly on male officers. As a result, the existing under-standing of policing is androcentric, and, in most of this research, women are treated as “others.” Feminist scholars have attempted to overcome this limitation. Feminist researchers have focused on the role of gender within police organizations, the differ-ent behaviors of men and women in the field, and the advantages that female ways of knowing bring into the profession. In general, the research has attempted to capture the unique experiences and challenges faced by female officers, which had previ-ously been excluded from most policing research. While feminist criminologists dis-agree on how female officers should best navigate the policing profession (Schulz, 2004), feminist criminology has highlighted the less-researched experiences of female officers.

Several reviews of the literature on women and policing have summarized the major findings on women in policing (see, for example, Archbold & Schulz, 2012;



Kringen 371

Corsianos, 2009; Hassell, Archbold, & Schulz, 2011). Research has shown that female officers perform their duties as well as their male counterparts (Archbold & Schulz, 2012). There is also evidence that female officers differ from male officers in their use of force (Brandl, Stroshine, & James, 2001; Garner, Schade, Hepburn, & Buchanan, 1995; NCWP, 2002), in their likelihood of being involved in corruption (Lersch, 2002), and in their ability to use communication to resolve disputes (Eagly & Steffen, 1986; NCWP, 1999). Furthermore, evidence suggests that police work frequently involves activities that are socially constructed as feminine (Martin, 1999; Martin & Jurik, 2007) with approximately 80% of police work involving activities typically associated with social work such as resolving disputes and problem solving (Corsianos, 2009). Therefore, it has been argued that the vast majority of policing involves tasks that are potentially more suited to women’s socialization (Garcia, 2003).

Despite these efforts by feminist scholars, research on women in policing has had limited influence on policies to increase the representation of women within the policing profession. Considering the policy-oriented objectives of feminist criminol-ogy, this limitation deserves attention. Specifically, is it possible that research on women in policing remains isolated from the mainstream understanding of policing due to the same constraints that limit the transmission of other areas of feminist research in criminology. To understand whether this is the case, the following study was conducted to evaluate the major trends in research on women in policing. This assessment provides insights into the quantity, dissemination, and focus of past research with the goal of developing insights into fruitful areas for future research on women and policing.

Method

A systematic literature review was conducted to assess trends in research on female police officers over the last 40 years (1972 to 2012). The search included scholarly peer-reviewed journals, trade journals, books, reports, and dissertations. The search was conducted in multiple electronic bibliographic databases including Criminal Justice Abstracts, Genderwatch, National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, and SocINDEX.

The following keywords were queried: women and policing, female and policing, female and officer, women and officer, gender and officer, gender and policing, women and law enforcement, female and law enforcement, and gender and law enforcement. As necessary, wildcard searchers involving an asterisk were utilized to truncate and find variants of words. In addition, websites from policing organizations were searched for relevant literature including the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), the International Association of Women Police (IAWP), the NCWP, and the Police Foundation.

The search resulted in a total of 7,686 records. The data were extracted utilizing software from the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Reviewer 4) and a duplicates report was conducted. A total of 918 dupli-cates were identified and removed from the results. After this search for duplicates,




6,768 records with a title and abstract were identified and coded in terms of their eli-gibility for analysis. Eligible studies met the following criteria:

1. published between 1972 and 2012,2. written in English,3. general research on police that included gender in the analysis, or4. studies where female police officers were the focus of the research.

Applying the above criteria for study inclusion, 6,167 studies were excluded. The majority of these studies were excluded because they involved women and police rather than female police officers. For example, many of the excluded studies focused on female offenders or female victims and their interactions with police. Finally, three studies were added based on personal knowledge of the material. The final sample consisted of 604 studies meeting the above criteria. The process for sample selection is illustrated in Figure 1.

Excluded for focus

6,167

Others added

3

Ini�al search results7,686

Duplicates removed

918

Abstracts screened

Poten�al includes6,768

Publica�ons evaluated

604

Trade journal ar�cles

68

Books142

Other22

Academic journal ar�cles

372

Figure 1. Sample selection process.



Kringen 373

These studies were analyzed with the goal of providing answers to the following questions:

1. What types of publications featured the research?2. To what extent was the research published in specialty journals?3. How was the research divided between major themes?4. How much of the research featured gender as the primary focus?5. How have the outlets and themes of published research on women in policing

changed over time?

To address each of these questions, individual studies were reviewed and coded according to a fixed set of criteria. First, each study was coded for the type of publica-tion. The categories for type of publication included academic journals, trade journals, books, and other written materials. In addition, studies published in academic journals were then coded to capture the specific type of academic journal. These categories included police specialty journal, gender specialty journal, general criminology or criminal justice journal, and other academic journal (e.g., psychology, sociology). In comparison with police specialty journals and criminology and criminal justice jour-nals, gender specialty journals did not necessarily focus on criminology or criminal justice. Journals with a focus on gender outside of the criminal justice field were included in this category in addition to gender specialty journals within criminology such as Women & Criminal Justice.

Second, each study was reviewed for content and coded thematically according to the theme of the study. The categories for this analysis were derived from the review of the literature on women in policing conducted by Archbold and Schulz (2012). In their review, Archbold and Schulz placed the research on women in policing into two general areas. The first area included the similarities and differences between male and female police officers. This area included research examining whether women per-form as officers in the same way as men across a variety of policing tasks (e.g., deci-sion making, use of force, use of communication, etc.). For the present analysis, studies fitting into this category were coded as job performance research.

The second area utilized by Archbold and Schulz (2012) included research on the workplace experiences of female police officers. This encompassed experiences of female police officers—including acceptance by male officers, perceptions of fairness, sexism, support for other female officers, and general acceptance by public. In addi-tion, this area included research on the opportunities available to female officers including reasons for entering the profession, special duty assignments, and promotion of women to higher ranks. Because opportunities may have a greater impact on the representation of women in policing than other job experiences, for the present analy-sis this category was subdivided into job experience research and blocked opportunity research. Studies that focused on the experiences of being a female officer such as acceptance into the profession, perceptions of fairness, and unique effects of the job on women were coded as job experience. Studies that focused on issues such as hiring, retention, promotion, and assignment were coded as blocked opportunity research.




The coding of each study reflected the primary focal point of the research. For exam-ple, if the focus of a study was sexual harassment within policing, it was coded as job experience. However, if the focus of a study was promotional barriers and sexual harassment was determined to be a barrier, the study was coded as blocked opportu-nity. Studies not fitting into any of the three categories were coded as other.

To assess whether gender was the primary focus of the study, three coding catego-ries were created. Studies were coded as either having a gender focus, highlighting a gender finding, or simply including gender in analysis. The first category, gender-focused, included articles where the study was specifically designed to assess some aspect of gender in policing. In these studies, the research questions specifically per-tained to gender, and the title often mentioned a gender focus. The second category, highlighting a gender finding, consisted of studies where gender or sex was a second-ary focus in a study that primarily focused on other research questions. In these stud-ies, a finding related to gender was highlighted (often featured in the abstract), but other findings were deemed more central. The third category, including gender in the analysis, consisted of studies where the research questions did not specifically pertain to gender, yet gender was included in the analysis. Unlike the previous category, stud-ies coded as including gender in the analysis simply used gender as a control variable and any findings specific to gender were not emphasized. For example, research con-cerning the influence of individual characteristics on job-related behavior would often include sex as one of the characteristics while failing to discuss the implication of any observed differences related to gender. Finally, the records were coded according to the geographic location of the study data. Studies were coded as either using data from within the United States or as using data from outside the United States.

Analysis of the data involved calculating percentages for each categorical measure relating to each of the research questions. In addition, the categorical data on journal type were disaggregated by thematic focus to allow comparison of the distribution of thematic focus between journal types. Finally, two sets of analyses were undertaken to determine the change in the focus of the literature over time. The first analysis com-pared descriptive statistics indicating the relative levels of scholarship for two time segments. The first segment included observations from 1972 to 1992; the second segment included observations from 1993 to 2012.

There were two reasons for using 1992 as the cut point. First, 1992 is the midpoint in the sample. Thus, it breaks the series into simple first and second halves for com-parison. The second reason is more substantial. In 1992, policing as a profession came under a new type of scrutiny. After the Rodney King incident and the Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department issued in 1991, a new focus on diversity and transparency was mandated in police organizations. The Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (Christopher & Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991) noted that women use a style of policing that resulted in lower rates of excessive force. In response to the media coverage of the events, the findings of the Commission’s report, and the increased pressure on police agencies to be more accountable, the envi-ronment of policing was substantially changed.



Kringen 375

The second analysis involved examining published scholarship by year to assess the trends over time. This analysis provides a description of the increases in the rates of publication of studies on women and policing. Furthermore, disaggregation of the trends by thematic focus provides insights into changes in research topics over time. Such trends can provide insights into issues regarding the policy relevance of existing scholarship.

Findings

Of the 604 publications concerning women and policing during the period from 1972 to 2012, 372 were articles published in academic journals, 68 were articles published in trade journals, 142 were books, and 22 were other print materials (e.g., disserta-tions, conference proceedings, etc.). Of the 372 scholarly articles published during the 40-year time period, 83.2% of the articles were published in policing specialty jour-nals, gender specialty journals, or general criminology and criminal justice journals. A total of 134 articles (36% of total academic articles) were published in policing spe-cialty journals, while a total of 68 articles (18.3% of total academic articles) were published in gender specialty journals. A total of 107 articles (28.8% of total academic articles) were published in general criminology or criminal justice journals. The top five academic journals publishing articles on women and policing were Women and Criminal Justice (49), Journal of Criminal Justice (29), Journal of Police Science and Administration (29), International Journal of Police Science and Management (19), and Police Quarterly (17). In total, 464 of the publications studied women and polic-ing issues in the United States, and the remaining 140 studied women and policing outside the United States.

Regarding thematic focus, job experience was the largest topic area with 270 pub-lications. Blocked job opportunity was the second largest topic area with 176 publica-tions. Job performance was the smallest of the three main categories with 104 publications. Fifty-five publications presented research outside these three main topic areas (e.g., historical perspectives, general overviews, etc.). The distribution of the-matic content for academic and trade journals is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Thematic focus by journal type.




Gender was the primary focus in the vast majority of articles (81.4%). Few arti-cles (4.8%) highlighted a finding about gender when the research was not primarily focused on gender, although the tendency to include gender while failing to address its importance was still present in multiple studies (13.8%). The percentage of stud-ies with a primary focus on gender did not significantly differ by thematic focus with job performance research primarily focusing on gender in 72.6% of studies, job experience research primarily focusing on gender in 87.0% of studies, and blocked opportunities research primarily focusing on gender in 79.8% of studies. The per-centage of studies primarily focusing on gender was significantly lower in main-stream criminology or criminal justice journals (72.9%) and in policing specialty journals (78.5%) than in gender specialty journals (100%), although gender spe-cialty journals actually published the smallest number of studies focusing on gender and policing (68 studies). Policing specialty journals published 106 total studies primarily focusing on gender compared with 78 such studies in mainstream crimi-nology and criminal justice journals.

The journal analysis of the two time periods, 1972 to 1992 and 1993 to 2012, indi-cated that substantially more scholarship was produced in the later period. This finding was consistent across journal type—with academic journals publishing 3.49 times as many articles and trade journals publishing 2.91 times as many articles in the second time period. The finding held regardless of the study focus, with the exception of job performance studies published in trade journals that showed only a minimal increase from 0.14 to 0.20. Job experience studies showed the greatest increase between time periods with 3.90 times as many publications in the latter period. The results of the period analysis are presented in Table 1.

The trend analysis resulted in findings that were consistent with the previous analy-sis. The trend analysis showed that total scholarship on women and policing had increased over the 40-year period. Disaggregating the overall trend by focus area

Table 1. Mean Publications per Year During 1973 to 1992 and 1993 to 2012.

1972-1992 1993-2012

Mean publications per year 5.00 16.70 Academic 4.14 14.20 Trade 0.86 2.50Mean job performance studies per year 0.95 2.85 Academic 0.81 2.65 Trade 0.14 0.20Mean job experience studies per year 2.10 8.20 Academic 1.76 6.95 Trade 0.33 1.25Mean job opportunity studies per year 1.67 4.25 Academic 1.33 3.65 Trade 0.33 0.60



Kringen 377

yielded more informative results. The disaggregated trends indicated that scholarship on job performance had increased little over the period. Scholarship on blocked job opportunities likewise showed minimal increases. However, research on job experi-ence demonstrated substantial increases over the period. The disaggregated trends are presented in Figure 3. Moving averages are presented to remove short-term volatility.

Discussion

This systematic review of the literature indicates that, overall, scholarship on women and policing has increased. While there have been increases in the quantity of research pub-lished concerning women and policing, the majority of the increase can be attributed to research related to job experiences published in academic journals. Most of the research on female officers published in academic journals has been published in policing spe-cialty journals. General criminology and criminal justice journals were the second larg-est outlet. Gender specialty journals published the fewest total articles on women and policing of the three categories. However, Women & Criminal Justice, a gender specialty journal, was the single largest outlet publishing 49 articles over the period.

Figure 3. Quantity of scholarship by focus area over time.




Considering these findings, the importance of specialty journals as outlets for research on women in policing cannot be overlooked. Specialty journals (both polic-ing and gender) account for 65.3% of the academic articles published. Taking into account the ratio of general criminology and criminal justice journals to specialty jour-nals, these findings suggest that articles on women and policing are underrepresented in general criminology and criminal justice journals. While research within specialty journals may reach other individuals with common interests, general criminology and criminal justice journals offer the opportunity to reach a wider audience.

The tendency for research on women in policing to be published in specialty jour-nals illustrates that the knowledge generated by the research likely remains peripheral to mainstream criminology. The marginalization of findings related to women in polic-ing perpetuates the situation where what is known and taught about policing consists of what is known about men in the profession. This situation mirrors the problem seen in other aspects of criminology where educational efforts are primarily focused on male behavior (Goodstein, 1992). Another related problem is that the current trends in publication suggest that the knowledge generated about female officers may not be informing the field of policing. Although a substantial proportion of the research on women in policing is published in policing specialty journals, research indicates that police practitioners are unlikely to get their information from academic journals including those specializing in policing. Rather, they are more likely to get their infor-mation from trade journals that summarize research findings (Rojek, Alpert, & Smith, 2012). Few studies on women and policing are actually published in trade journals limiting the transmission of this knowledge from researchers to practitioners.

This is particularly problematic in areas where research can directly impact policy. Currently, police organizations struggle with issues such as blocked job opportunities for women, and studies that focus on the barriers to hiring, retaining, and promoting women could help address these problems. Considering the policy and action focus of feminist criminology and the issues faced by women in policing today, it is clear that generating and disseminating knowledge about these issues is a critical task for femi-nist researchers. The moderate increase in research directed at blocked opportunities demonstrated by this review provides an example of an area where additional research is needed. Furthermore, the findings of this study indicate that even the limited volume of research available has failed to make its way into trade journals read by practitio-ners. Together, these two issues result in a situation where there is little empirical work available to practitioners to help guide policies aimed at increasing opportunities for women and improving the experiences of female police officers.

One of the tenets of feminist scholarship is to maintain an activist scholarship. For this to occur, feminist scholars should consider the publication outlets necessary for their research to inform practitioners, both male and female, and to aid in policy change. While peer-reviewed journals are often the golden standard for tenure and promotion, practitioner journals or online practitioner outlets, such as Police One, may provide a louder mouthpiece for the issues and challenges still facing female officers. Peer-reviewed journals and practitioner outlets are often seen as mutually exclusive; however, this view does not need to define reality. Peer-reviewed journal articles can



Kringen 379

be summarized and synthesized for an audience of police professionals allowing for better dissemination. Journal articles with a focus on opportunities would best suit these types of outlets, especially if they include policy recommendations.

If feminist criminology chooses to embrace the role of guiding policy to improve women’s opportunities in policing, then the field must reflect on the type of research questions that are important to achieving this goal and the proper outlets for dissemi-nating the findings. While research on the experiences of female officers continues to support the pervasive existence of hegemonic masculinity within policing, experience-related research questions fail to shed light on specific ways in which women’s posi-tion in policing can be improved. By focusing research questions on policy issues and publishing the results as summaries in trade journals in addition to academic journals, feminist scholars are more likely to discover opportunities to effect change while still fostering a better understanding of the female officer experience.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

Archbold, C. A., & Schulz, D. M. (2008). Making rank. Police Quarterly, 11, 50-73.Archbold, C. A., & Schulz, D. M. (2012). Research on women in policing: A look at the past,

present and future. Sociology Compass, 6, 694-708.Brandl, S. G., Stroshine, M. S., & James, F. (2001). Who are the complaint-prone officers? An

examination of the relationship between police officers’ attributes, arrest activity, assign-ment, and citizens’ complaints about excessive force. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29, 521-529.

Chesney-Lind, M. (1989). Girls’ crime and woman’s place: Towards a feminist model of female delinquency. Crime & Delinquency, 35, 5-29.

Chesney-Lind, M. (1998). Forward. In S. L. Miller (Ed.), Crime control and women (pp. ix-xii). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Christopher, W., & Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. (1991) Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles, CA: The Commission.

Cordner, G., & Cordner, A. (2011). Stuck on a plateau? Obstacles to recruitment, selection, and retention of women police. Police Quarterly, 3, 207-226.

Corsianos, M. (2009). Policing and gendered justice: Examining the possibilities. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Daly, K., & Chesney-Lind, M. (1988). Feminism and criminology. Justice Quarterly, 5, 597-538.

Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1986). Gender and aggressive behavior: A meta-analytic review of social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 309-330.




Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2012). [Table illustration from Crime in the United States, 2012]. Table 74. Full-time Law Enforcement Employees, by Population Group, Percent Male and Female. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov

Flavin, J. (2001). Feminism for the mainstream criminologist: An invitation. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29, 271-285.

Garcia, V. (2003). “Difference” in the police department. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 3, 330-344.

Garner, J., Schade, T., Hepburn, J., & Buchanan, J. (1995). Measuring the continuum of force used by and against the police. Criminal Justice Review, 20, 146-168.

Goodstein, L. (1992). Feminist perspectives and the criminal justice curriculum. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 3, 165-181.

Hannon, L., & Dufour, L. R. (1998). Still just the study of men and crime? A content analysis. Sex Roles, 38, 63-71.

Hassell, K. D., Archbold, C. A., & Schulz, D. M. (2011). Women and policing in America: Classic and contemporary readings. New York, NY: Aspen.

Humphries, D. (1999). Crack mother: Pregnancy, drugs, and the media. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Lersch, K. (2002). Policing and misconduct. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Martin, S. E. (1999). Police force or public service? Gender and emotional labor. The ANNALS

of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561, 111-126.Martin, S. E., & Jurik, N. C. (2007). Doing justice, doing gender: Women in law and criminal

justice occupations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Massey, J., Miller, S. L., & Wilhelmi, A. (1998). Civil forfeiture of property: The victimization

of women as innocent owners and third parties. In S. L. Miller (Ed.), Crime control and women (pp. 15-31). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Melchionne, T. M. (1967). Current status and problems of women police. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, & Police Science, 58, 257-260.

Messerschmidt, J. W. (1997). Crime as structured action: Gender, race, class, and crime in the making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Naffine, N. (1996). Feminism and criminology. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.National Center for Women and Policing. (1999). Equality denied: The status of women in

policing 1998. Beverley Hills, CA: Author.National Center for Women and Policing. (2000). Gender differences in the cost of police bru-

tality and misconduct: A content analysis of LAPD civil liability cases: 1990-1999. Los Angeles, CA: Author.

National Center for Women and Policing. (2002). Equality denied: The status of women in policing 2001. Los Angeles, CA: Author.

Raeder, M. S. (1993). Gender and sentencing: Single moms, battered women, and other sex-based anomalies in the gender-free world of the federal sentencing guidelines. Pepperdine Law Review, 20, 905-920.

Reaves, B. A. (2012). Federal law enforcement officers, 2008 (NCJ 238250). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fleo08.pdf

Reaves, B. A., & Hickman, M. J. (2002). Police departments in large cities, 1990-2000 (NCJ 175703). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pdlc00.pdf

Rojek, J., Alpert, G., & Smith, H. (2012). The utilization of research by the police. Police Practice & Research: An International Journal, 13, 329-341.


http://www.fbi.gov

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fleo08.pdf

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pdlc00.pdf


Kringen 381

Schulz, D. M. (2004). Breaking the brass ceiling: Women police chiefs and their paths to the top. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Sharp, S. F., & Hefley, K. (2007). This is a man’s world . . . or least that’s how it looks in the journals. Critical Criminology, 15, 3-18.

Steffensmeier, D., & Allan, E. (1996). Gender and crime: Toward a gendered theory of female offending. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 459-487.

Author Biography

Anne Li Kringen is an assistant professor in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven. Her research focuses on the role of gender and inequality in criminal justice with a specific interest in women in policing. Her current work concentrates on recruiting and applicant processing within police organizations and the effect of these processes on women interested in joining the profession.



Documents

Kringen 2014 - Scholarship on Women and Policing