NCJ Number
89708
Journal
Journal of Police Science and Administration Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1983) Pages: 16-22
Date Published
1983
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This Detroit study found that being sensitized to policewomen had a predominantly negative impact on subjects' perceptions of police, and this correlated with the view that police are predominantly crime fighters.
Abstract
One hundred of the subjects had responded to an earlier Detroit-area survey, and 100 were nonresponding households. Each group of 100 households was randomly divided into two subgroups of 50 experimental and 50 control households, yielding experimental and control groups of 100 households. The experimental group was sensitized to policewomen by a letter from an ad hoc group created for this study, the Michigan Women's Employment Opportunity League. The letter was designed to persuade the reader that women could function successfully in traditional male roles such as policing. One month after the sensitizing letter was sent to the experimental group, all subjects were sent a letter explaining an enclosed questionnaire. The questionnaire solicited attitudes toward the function of police, police effectiveness, and the image of police as masculine or feminine. With the exception of the slightly greater willingness of some experimental subjects to consider being police officers, the predominant reaction of the experimental group was negative toward police in general and toward women as police in particular. The experimental group also tended to see police primarily as crime fighters and resisted the idea that women could be effective crime fighters. Public education about the service functions of the police in such area as dealing with domestic violence may alter the community's judgments about the traits needed for good police work. Tabular data and 20 references are provided.