Gender and Community Policing

by Miller, Susan L.

• ISBN13: 9781555534134
• ISBN10: 1555534139
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-04
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

While traditional policing celebrated male officers as masculine crime fighters who were tough, aloof, and physically intimidating, policewomen were characterized as too soft and emotional for patrol assignments and were relegated to roles focusing on children, other women, or clerical tasks. With the advent of community policing, women's perceived skills are finally finding a legitimate place in police work, and law enforcement structures now encourage such previously undervalued feminine traits as trust, cooperation, compassion, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution. In this illuminating study of gender and community policing, Susan L. Miller draws on a combination of survey data, forthright interviews with a diverse mix of police officers, and extensive fieldwork conducted in a midwestern city where community policing has been practiced for over a decade. She describes the differences and similarities in policing styles of male and female officers, considers the relationships that develop between neighborhood police on foot and patrol officers in squad cars, and explores the interactions between neighborhood officers and community members. Miller confronts such questions as how police reconcile incompatible images of masculinity and femininity; how actions of neighborhood police officers compare with those of traditional rapid response patrol officers; how community police cope with resistance from the rank and file; and how gender and gender-role expectations shape police activities and the evaluation of new skills. Gender and Community Policing provides both a feminist framework for community policing and a fresh examination of how race, gender, and sexual orientation affect police image, identity, and methods.

Author Biography

Susan L. Miller is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware. She lives in Wilmington, Delaware

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Background: The Research Goals, Methods, and Site	3	(25)
A Day in the Life of an NPO: In-Depth Profiles of Six Officers	28	(37)
Intersecting Gender with Community Policing: A Review of the History, Existing Theories, and Research	65	(34)
Competing Police Roles: Social Workers or Dirty Harry/Harriet?	99	(40)
Police and Community: Interactions	139	(26)
Walking the Talk: Contrasting Neighborhood Officers and Patrol Officers	165	(28)
Summary: The Findings and Their Policy Implications	193	(36)
Appendix: Methodology	229	(10)
References	239	(10)
Index	249