NCJ Number
136290
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Dated: (1991) Pages: 105-128
Date Published
1991
Length
24 pages
Annotation
The attitudes of a sample of 410 municipal police officers from Alabama were analyzed to describe officer attitudes about female crime and to uncover potential sources of influence for these attitudes.
Abstract
Only two of the five job-related characteristics that were hypothesized to be related to the officers' attitudes about female crime achieved significance: years of experience as a police officer and whether the officer worked a second job. Feminist attitudes were related significantly to attitudes about female crime. Officers who were pro-feminist in their attitudes about women in non-traditional occupations or about women's roles more generally tended to agree with Adler's depictions of a "new" female criminality. On the basis of these results, it may be that officers who are relatively pro-feminist in orientation are less likely to treat female suspects differently than they would treat male suspects. 6 notes, 2 tables, 49 references, and 2 appendixes