The NCWP report indicates that research undertaken both internationally and in the United States clearly indicate that women officers depend on a policing style that utilizes less force and is better at defusing as well as de-selecting potentially violent confrontation with citizens. I agree with these advantages, and the others highlighted in the report because both women and men are similarly efficient at law enforcement, yet female officers often tend to conduct their work with increased emphasis on communication, less dependence on physical force as well as substantially less possibility of being engaged in excess force issues.
In addition to the highlighted advantages, the interpersonal skills that women possess can benefit the law enforcement through minimizing the number of police brutality cases which result from undue forces. In one law enforcement department, for example, 96 percent of police brutality cases were as a result of acts by male officers (Melnick, 2011). Female officers seem to have an advantage in keeping potentially violent circumstances peaceful.
Various studies have shown that there is a less likely chance that a female officer will participate in acts of police corruption. There is less chance that they will use legitimate physical force in their duties. Besides assisting to diversify the police labor force, there are certainly practical advantages of having women in uniform, according to a report by the National Centre for Women and Policing; female officers have shown competence as their male counterparts. The report concluded that men and women were equally able of performing as patrol officers.
On the other hand, machismo positions the work of law enforcement in a framework of masculine values and male ownership of policing and function has been considered as being a problem for both female police officers and female victims of crime (Lilly et al., 2009). Besides, there have been ongoing accounts reacting to the failure of police to provide a response to female victims of sexually offending and the blame for this has often been associated with police culture. Despite this, the number of female police officers has significantly increased in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
References
Melnick, R. S. (2011). Charles Epp, Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State. Society, 48(3), 264-267.
Lilly, M. M., Pole, N., Best, S. R., Metzler, T., & Marmar, C. R. (2009). Gender and PTSD: What can we learn from female police officers?. Journal of anxiety disorders, 23(6), 767-774.
