Researching gender and law enforcement as public health input

In western developed countries women make up approximately 20 per cent of the police workforce. Estonia boasts the highest proportion of female officers with 33 per cent (Resetnikova, 2006), while among the lowest is Pakistan with fewer than 1 per cent (Peters, 2014). These figures show that the extent of women’s inclusion in policing is globally disparate, but why is this so and does it matter? Policing is traditionally held up as a male occupation due to perceived necessity of physical strength, though many studies have rejected the view that effective policing requires the bodily authority associated with masculinity (Lonsway, 2000; Silvestri, 2003). Police agencies are under increasing pressure to be ‘professional’ and accountable to the whole community, including having a workforce which reflects the diversity of people they serve. Promoting and upholding an ‘internal culture of mutual respect and fairness’ can be seen as important ingredients in securing community support (Sutton, 1996). There is a range of circumstances which can propel women into law enforcement occupations, but these are not necessarily linear projects because they also relate to the status of women in broader society. Increasingly, it is recognized that policy transfer or export has unevenly travelled from Global North to South (Carrington, Hogg, Sozzo, 2015; Connell, 2007), sometimes with poor outcomes or unintended consequences. The nature of, and prospects for, women’s integration in policing, their rights and safety, thus, rely on strategies both inside and outside the police organization and appropriate for local circumstances. Whilst law enforcement has not usually been perceived to have an explicit public health role, there has recently been growing interest in the many ways in which law enforcement, especially police, contribute to the public health mission (Van Dijk & Crofts, 2017). Looking at a specific police– health nexus, women’s participation in policing has shown benefits associated with responsiveness to—and reduction of— gender-based violence (Miller & Segal, 2016). Women officers are also less likely to use excessive force (Lonsway, 2000; Porter & Prenzler, 2017; Schuck & Rabe-Hemp, 2007). Thus, the presence of police women can have dual effects on public health: firstly, as protectors who prevent violence in the community, and secondly, as less inclined to be perpetrators of violence in their official capacity. Within western liberal democracies, women have often pursued full integration (after a period of segregation) into policing, undertaking the same training and initial operational deployment as men. This approach relied on pioneering women who were prepared to publicly and overtly resist workplace segregation (Brown, 1997; Strobl, 2008), but this tactic is not globally uniform. Strobl (2008) argues the trajectory for women’s integration in policing in the West coalesced around availability of legislation to litigate against gender discrimination and wider feminist movements in the 1960s. These dynamics enabled a ‘cultural space’ for dissent not necessarily available to women in some places. Strobl specifically mentions Muslim Arab contexts. That is not to say Muslim Arab women do not engage in ‘politicking’, but that it is done within certain cultural parameters which avoid overt confrontation and maintain the ‘power and control associated with the male identity’ (Strobl, 2008, p. 55). Despite some universalities, there are different policing paradigms with distinctive systems and cultural differences (Van Dijk, Hoogewoning, & Punch, 2015). Subsequently, there are different drivers for women’s inclusion in policing and the nature of their inclusion. In some cases, it is to address the needs of women in the community (for example, gender-based violence and Women’s Police Stations in Brazil) (Hautzinger, 2002); in others, a broader top-down government push for gender equality and equal opportunity (see postConfucian Taiwan) (Gingerich & Chu, 2013), or as a response to public criticism, as in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya gang-rape case in 2012 which instigated reforms in the Delhi Police (Khanikar, 2016). In the Ukraine, an unstable security environment has seen gender-sensitive police reform as a key driver for improving policing with a view to being an exemplar for gender equality community-wide (Weitenberg & Grey, 2018). Barriers to women’s participation in policing also vary across different legal frameworks, local cultures, and institutional practices. For example, departmental policies compelling women to cut their hair to shorter than one inch prior to entering police training in Texas had differential effects on potential African-American applicants (Kringen, 2014). A lack of uniforms, lockable toilets and changing rooms, and exposure to sexual assault dissuades women from policing in Afghanistan (Hancock, 2013). In some instances, Journal of COMMUNITY SAFETY & WELL-BEING