Women Police Officers in Initial Discussion Post,

Women Police Officers

In initial discussion post, briefly summarize readings Kleinig Banks' texts. In addition, initial post discuss journal articles Appendix A. The journal article choose discuss post article chosen week. The post include a question elicit responses peers.

Discussion post: Women police officers and the use of coercion

According to the article "Women police officers and the use of coercion" (Paoline & Terrill 2005), despite many advances in equalizing the treatment of the genders in hiring and promotional decisions, women police officers continue to face prejudice within the profession. Women are perceived as lacking the necessary psychological and physical strength to deal with unruly suspects or even members of the public. But is this true, empirically speaking? Until recently, most studies focused on excessive use of force and different gendered patterns. This study attempted to understand the impact of gender upon the reasonable use of coercion.

The data accumulated by the authors, did not support many commonly-articulated assumptions regarding female police officers. "Examinations of both verbal and physical force reveal few differences in not only the prevalence of each behavior, but also in the commonly associated explanatory factors" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 98). Previous research conducted since the 1970s indicated that female officers were "less aggressive, [gave] fewer arrests and tickets, [and] less likely to receive citizen complaints" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 98). Paoline and Terrill conducted a "systematic social observation study" comparing police units in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 98). Patrols were observed and compared in 12 beats in each city (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 103).

One problem with the study is the multitude of factors beyond gender that can influence use of force, such as suspect characteristics (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 106). As well as gender, the study designers examined multiple influences that could determine the use of force, including the officer's "race, highest level of education, and years of experience" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 105). And the study is dependent to great degree upon the ability of the observers to accurately assess the appropriateness of force and what constitutes coercive behavior. Observer bias, for example, might cause the study designers to view women as more or less aggressive because certain behaviors are perceived differently when expressed by women.

Additionally, there must be a distinction made between necessary and non-necessary use of force and clarity about what constitutes 'coercion' in general for the study to be valid. The study designers admit that there are certain cultural variables which affect such a definition -- in general, physical force tends to be more explicitly 'read' as coercion, even though women may be more apt to use verbal means. "Traditionally, coercive force has been conceived of in a physical manner, but others have begun to acknowledge that officers' coercive authority can be displayed verbally as well" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 101).

The findings were counterintuitive, suggesting that for both genders of officers, coercion was more often verbal than physical: "no gender differences are uncovered in relation to verbal and physical force, as statistical tests (i.e., chi square) fail to achieve appropriate levels of significance" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 108). The only statistically significant differences were that less experienced male officers were more likely to use force upon male subjects and were statistically "significantly more likely" to use higher levels of force, versus similar encounters "with similarly experienced female officers" (Paoline and Terrill 2005: 111).