Gender and Policing

"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.

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