What Do College Students Think of Policewomen?: An Attitudinal Assessment of Future Law Enforcement Personnel

• NCJ Number: 181688
• Journal: Women and Criminal Justice Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Dated: 1999 Pages: 1-24
• Author(s): Thomas L. Austin; Don Hummer
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 24 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Many police departments are committed to increasing both the number of female officers on patrol duty and in administrative/management positions while requiring new recruits to have either a 2-year or 4-year college degree before admittance to the academy; given these organizational changes in a traditionally male-dominated profession, this research assessed the attitudes of 835 undergraduate students at a mid-sized, State-supported northeastern university regarding women in the policing field.

Abstract

A sample of college students was selected because the pool of applicants for law enforcement positions is now centered in the Nation's colleges and universities. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire that consisted of 23 items in three sections. The major conclusion from the findings is that attitudes of male college students in general and those of male criminal justice majors in particular regarding women as police officers remain somewhat negative. Still, there has been a significant degree of change over the past decades when compared with Steffensmeier's (1979) results in a similar study. Moreover, female students, regardless of major, remain positive about women in the law enforcement field. The analyses show that approximately two-thirds of male criminal justice majors are supportive of policewomen; Steffensmeier reported a 44 percent rate of support in 1979. The findings of the current study are not as encouraging, however, when compared to Golden's 1981 study of male student attitudes toward women in law enforcement. In her study, male criminal justice students reported an overall favorable rating of slightly higher than 60 percent, using many of the same survey items used in the current study. A comparison with the current study results does not show a significant improvement in attitudes toward women in policing since 1981. 6 tables and 51 references