Women in Charge

The number of women police in England and Wales continues to increase, and whilst under represented at senior rank level the arrival of women at Chief Constable level has raised the profile of their role.This is the first book to provide a detailed study of senior women police officers, and is based on extensive research which includes a wide range of in-depth interviews. Its main aims are as follows:to trace women's progression into police leadershipto develop an understanding of the way women leaders can bring about change through developing new styles and conceptualisations of leadershipassesses the extent to which senior policewomen are working to make gender and equality issues visible and central to organisational agendato situate the issue of women's leadership in the police in the broader context of debates around police diversity, changes in policing tasks, and issues of corruption, community and race relations and crime and clear-up rates.

Marisa Silvestri is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at London South Bank University.