where are the women police in ferguson?

[niyad]

Where Are the Women Police in Ferguson?

Images from Ferguson, Missouri, have filled TV and computer screens around the country since the tragic killing of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson—everywhere we’ve looked we’ve seen vulnerability and anger, chaos and peaceful resistance, tragedy and triumph. But we couldn’t help but notice there seems to be one thing missing in the deluge of photos and videos: There are next to no women law enforcement officials on the streets of the St. Louis suburb.

We called the city’s police department and, according to a spokeswoman, just five of the city’s 53 police officers are women. Only three of the 53 are African American, in a town that’s 67 percent black.
This matters. Had more women been on the scene during the demonstrations following the 18 year old’s death, things might have looked very different.

“Women tend to talk, to reason, to try to deescalate violence,” Penny Harrington, former Portland chief of police and the first woman head of a major U.S. police department, told the Ms. Blog. By contrast, “men have been taught—through sports, through the military—that you use physical force to get situations under control. Those are two hugely different approaches.”

Harrington is right: Women police differently. A 2002 study by the National Center for Women and Policing—a program of the Feminist Majority Foundation that Harrington helped found—examined data from seven major U.S. police departments and found that, “The average male officer is over eight and a half times more likely than his female counterpart to have an allegation of excessive force sustained against him.”

. . . .

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/08/29/where-are-the-women-police-in-ferguson/

[TheKentuckian]

1. Cops are cops. They have but one race - blue. They have one gender - blue. They have one ideology -

blue. They have one creed - blue. They have one loyalty - blue.

That's it. It is the institution and the culture not the individuals.

[niyad]

2. did you read the article?

[TheKentuckian]

3. Yup. The police are a gang operating as a right wing militia.

[niyad]

4. that is not what the article said at all.

[TheKentuckian]

7. I didn't say it did but that is the reality of the situation. The article plays the demographic

game in order to avoid institutional and mission reform.

[leftstreet]

8. But the article seems like bullshit

It's lazy. Analyzing conflict resolution policies by gender is bullshit. How about taking the law enforcement system and its policies to task for allowing what happened in Ferguson in the first place? Each and every male officer is capable of the kind of deescalation the article assumes is the province of women. There just aren't policies that state it as a mission

If they're conjecturing-up how the impact of 'more women!' would have prevented Ferguson, why not go a step further and ruminate on making sure all the women are nuns, or daycare workers, or preemie RNs?!

[Lee-Lee]

9. Your response judging all cops in mass

Is just as stupid and simple minded as the rethugs who use that same logic about minorities.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Pretty silly stretch to equate an institutional occupation with race

One is 100% self selecting and the other is a societal grouping construct based on appearance and ancestry.

You can pretend there isn't an us and them culture that cuts through all other divisions but that isn't reality and sure as hell isn't typical.

[malthaussen]

5. Seems a little stereotypical, though.

Woman as peacemaker, man as warmonger. But then, women made up about 12% of US police forces in 2008, which is the most recent data I could find in a quick Google. So one wonders if a) women don't gravitate to police work because they are peacemakers, and not inclined to projecting force; or b) if they are simply excluded from the boy's club despite a desire to join. In any event, supposing there were more women involved in crowd-control situations, would they be more inclined to fall in line with the male members, or would they serve as a restraint on force? Speculation, since they aren't there to begin with. And then there is the question of what orders are filtering down from On High, which would have an impact on how they perform in crowd-control situations. The fact that as officers acting on their own they are less prone to garner complaints may not be relevant in a crowd-control situation invoving masses of officers.

-- Mal

[gordianot]

6. The Ferguson Police Chief had a female African American oficer at his announcements.

Of course they did not give her any lines to say that I am aware.

[Lee-Lee]

10. As a former cop and a female

I can tell you it's several things.

Women are still largely stuck in gender norms and roles pushed on them by a patriarchal society. Even when women are encouraged to have careers, rarely is something in law enforcement pushed.

Women struggle more with the physical requirements. While this varies by state, the requirements for NC to graduate the school are:

Applicant is given two street names before beginning.
Exit vehicle and advance 200 yards on foot.
Remove victim from vehicle and drag body 50 feet.
Scale staircase (up & down) 3 times while touching all steps.
Advance 25 feet to negotiate 50-pound “body force” door.
Complete 20 push-ups & 20 sit-ups (in that order).
Return 25 feet to scale staircase (up & down) three times.
Advance 25 feet to 40-foot culvert & crawl completely through using flashlight.
Complete 20 push-ups & 20 sit-ups (in that order).
Advance 200 yards on foot.The applicant will then grab the victim (standing by the vehicle) and drag the victim 50 feet. The applicant will then give the two street names in the same order they were given at the start of the test. Once this is completed, the clock will stop. (If the applicant does not remember the street names, he/she will have to advance 100yds and return 100 yards to the corner of the steps; then, the clock will stop.)
Upon completion of the agility test, the applicant will be informed if he/she passed or failed.

Time limit was 6:20 if memory served, male or female no differing scale unlike a military PT test where there are varied requirements by gender.

5 females started my BLET class with me. 3 finished, only 2 of us passed the physical test I described above and actually graduated.

I see departments always looking for female officers, thier chief complaint is they can't find applicants that are 1: qualified 2: interested and 3: able to pass the school.

Want more female cops? Start at an early age eliminating gender norms in how we raise out children, make our kids grow up more active and physically fit and the rest will fall into place as time goes on.