A Comparative Study of Police Officer Gender and the Use of Force

[摘要] The purpose of this study is to compare policewomen and policemen regarding the frequency of their involvement in the use of force when arresting citizens. The results of studies conducted in the 1970s, at the beginning of the widespread employment of female patrol officers, suggest that female officers have a calming effect on emotionally upset citizens. These earlier studies indicate that policewomen, unlike policemen, evoke a different response from the citizens with whom they interact. Based on these findings, it is hypothesized that female officers should be less frequently involved, than are male officers, in instances of using force to make arrests. This current study compares the rate of incidents for the male and female patrol officers of a medium size municipal police department. As hypothesized, the results of this study show that female officers, when working alone or with another female partner, are less frequently involved in incidents of using force, than are their male colleagues. However, this study also found that when female officers are assigned with male partners, these mixed gender patrol teams experience a frequency of involvement in the use of force that greatly exceeds that of either the male/male or the female/female gender combinations. Similarly, this study indicates that the rate of arrests made by the male/female officer combination surpasses by a large margin the arrest rates of the male/male patrol combination, as well as that of the female/female patrol combination. It is suggested that the results of this study may initiate some interest in conducting more conclusive research on this topic. Increasing our knowledge of how police behavior is influenced by the dynamics and cultural expectations of male and female sex roles has implications for police professionalism and police-community relations.

[发布机构] University of Michigan

[效力级别] female officers

[关键词] use of force;female officers;male officers;police;Public Administration