Gender and Policing

by Westmarland; Louise

• ISBN13: 9781903240700
• ISBN10: 1903240700
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

"This is an unusually brave and insightful book. No other female researcher in this country has ever managed to get so close to the front line of operational policing and few other criminologists have done so much to reveal the complex and often unexpected relationship between masculinity and police work. It is an essential text for anyone who wishes to understand how gender influences the manner in which the police tackle day-to-day patrol work, sexual offences, and the resolution of domestic disputes."Laurie TaylorGender and Policing is an innovative study of the real world of street policing and the gender issues which are a central part of this. Derived from extensive ethnographic research (involving police responses to gangland shootings, high speed car chases as well as more routine policing activities), this book examines the way police attitudes and beliefs combine to perpetuate a working culture which is dependent upon traditional conceptions of 'male' and 'female'. In doing so it challenges previously held assumptions about the way women are harassed, manipulated and constrained, focussing rather on the more subtle impact of structures and norms within police culture.Gender and Policing will be of interest to all those concerned with questions of policing and gender, and occupational culture more generally, while the theoretical framework developed will provide an important foundation for strategies of reform. At the same time the book provides a vivid and richly textured picture of the realities of operational policing in contemporary Britain.

Author Biography

Louise Westmarland is a Lecturer in Criminal Justice at the Scarman Centre, University of Leicester, and taught previously at the Universities of York and Teesside. Her research and publications have focused on areas of behaviour, ethics and gender issues in policing

Table of Contents

List of Tables	vii
Preface and acknowledgments	ix
Policing and gendered bodies	1	(16)
Agency and structure	5	(3)
Method	8	(5)
Scope of the book	13	(4)
Gendered specialists: dealing with women and children	17	(29)
Structural constraints	18	(6)
Dealing with women	24	(1)
Rubbish calls	25	(5)
Woman-friendly structures	30	(4)
`Natural' expertise	34	(2)
Offending children	36	(8)
Summary	44	(2)
Sexual deployment: offences against decency	46	(41)
Abusing children	50	(7)
Sexual expertise	57	(3)
Women have `the answer'	60	(5)
Career choices	65	(9)
`Real' police work	74	(5)
Gender and sexual assaults	79	(6)
Summary	85	(2)
Gender arrests: men and women on patrol	87	(47)
On the beat	91	(4)
Managing to be equal	95	(1)
Powerful bodies	96	(2)
Differential status	98	(2)
Women on patrol	100	(2)
Wild west	102	(8)
West End streets	110	(5)
Arresting by type	115	(3)
Working technologies	118	(8)
Violence and women's bodies	126	(3)
Supervising gender	129	(1)
Culture and Strength	130	(4)
Cars, guns and horses: masculinities in control	134	(42)
Masculine status	138	(2)
Avoiding women	140	(5)
Shooters and divers	145	(5)
A Professional body	150	(5)
Competent men	155	(4)
Sexualised power	159	(6)
Masculine heroes	165	(5)
Mortal heroes	170	(4)
Summary	174	(2)
Masculinities, the body and policing	176	(14)
Bibliography	190	(11)
Index	201