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                                                                                LAW, Page 70

Are Women Better Cops?


In some important ways, yes, especially as the job evolves.
Cool, calm and communicative, they help put a lid on violence
before it erupts.

By JEANNE MCDOWELL/LOS ANGELES -- With reporting by Georgia
Pabst/Milwaukee


    Among the residents, merchants and criminals of Venice,
Calif., officer Kelly Shea is as well known as the neighborhood
gang leaders. The blond mane neatly tied back, slender figure
and pink lipstick violate the stereotype of guardian of law and
order; but Shea, 32, has managed to win the respect of street
thugs who usually answer more readily to the slam of a cop's
billy club. She speaks softly, raising her voice only as
needed. While her record of arrests during her 10 years on
patrol is comparable to those of the men in her division, she
has been involved in only two street fights, a small number by
any cop's standard. Faced with hulking, 6-ft. 2-in. suspects,
she admits that her physical strength cannot match theirs.
"Coming across aggressively doesn't work with gang members,"
says Shea. "If that first encounter is direct, knowledgeable and
made with authority, they respond. It takes a few more words,
but it works."

    Hers is a far cry from the in-your-face style that has
been the hallmark of mostly male police forces for years. But
while women constitute only 9% of the nation's 523,262 police
officers, they are bringing a distinctly different, and
valuable, set of skills to the streets and the station house
that may change the way the police are perceived in the
community. Only on television is police work largely about
high-speed heroics and gunfights in alleys. Experts estimate
that 90% of an officer's day involves talking to citizens, doing
paperwork and handling public relations. Many cops retire after
sterling careers never having drawn their gun.

    As the job description expands beyond crime fighting into
community service, the growing presence of women may help
burnish the tarnished image of police officers, improve
community relations and foster a more flexible, and less
violent, approach to keeping the peace. "Policing today requires
considerable intelligence, communication, compassion and
diplomacy," says Houston police chief Elizabeth Watson, the only
female in the nation to head a major metropolitan force. "Women
tend to rely more on intellectual than physical prowess. From
that standpoint, policing is a natural match for them."

    Such traits take on new value in police departments that
have come under fire for the brutal treatment of suspects in
their custody. The videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King
by four Los Angeles cops last year threw a spotlight on the use
of excessive force by police. The number of reports continues
to remain high across the country after the furor that followed
that attack. Female officers have been conspicuously absent from
these charges: the independent Christopher commission, which
investigated the L.A.P.D. in the aftermath of the King beating,
found that the 120 officers with the most use-of-force reports
were all men. Civilian complaints against women are also
consistently lower. In San Francisco, for example, female
officers account for only 5% of complaints although they make
up 10% of the 1,839-person force. "And when you see a reference
to a female," says Eileen Luna, former chief investigator for
the San Francisco citizen review board, "it's often the positive
effect she has had in taking control in a different way from
male officers."

    Though much of the evidence is anecdotal, experts in
policing say the verbal skills many women officers possess often
have a calming effect that defuses potentially explosive
situations. "As a rule, they tend to be much more likely to go
in and talk rather than try to get control in a way that makes
everyone defensive," says Joanne Belknap, an associate professor
of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. Women cops,
she has found, perceive themselves as peacekeepers and
negotiators. "We're like pacifiers in these situations," says
Lieut. Helen DeWitte, a 21-year veteran of the Chicago force who
was the first woman in the department to be shot in the line of
duty. Having women partners for 14 years taught San Francisco
sergeant Tim Foley to use a softer touch with suspects, instead
of always opening with a shove. "It's nonthreatening and
disarming," he says, "and in the long run, it is easier than
struggling."

    Such a measured style is especially effective in handling
rape and domestic-violence calls, in which the victims are
usually women. In 1985 a study of police officers' treatment of
spousal-abuse cases by two University of Detroit professors
concluded that female officers show more empathy and commitment
to resolving these conflicts. While generalizations invite
unfair stereotyping, male officers often tend not to take these
calls as seriously, despite improved training and arrest
policies in almost half of all states. "Men tend to come on with
a stronger approach to quiet a recalcitrant male suspect," notes
Baltimore County police chief Cornelius Behan, whose
1,580-member force includes 143 women. "It gets his macho up,
and he wants to take on the cop."

    Despite the research, the notion of "female" and "male"
policing styles remains a controversial one. Individual
temperament is more important than gender in the way cops
perform, argues Edwin Delattre, author of Character and Cops:
Ethics in Policing. Other experts contend that aggressiveness
among officers is more a measure of a department's philosophy
and the tone set by its top managers. "When cops are trained to
think of themselves as fighters in a war against crime, they
come to view the public as the enemy," observes James Fyfe, a
criminal-justice professor at The American University.

    Some female officers have qualms as well about
highlighting gender-based differences in police work, especially
women who have struggled for years to achieve equity in mostly
male departments. The women fear that emphasizing their "people
skills" will reinforce the charge that they don't have the heft
or toughness to handle a crisis on the street. But while women
generally lack upper-body strength, studies consistently show
that in situations in which force is needed, they perform as
effectively as their male counterparts by using alternatives,
such as karate, twist locks or a baton instead of their fists.

    Yet the harassment that persists in many precinct houses
tempts female cops to try to blend in and be one of the boys.
All too often that means enduring the lewd jokes transmitted
over police-car radios and the sexist remarks in the halls. In
most places it means wearing an uncomfortable uniform designed
for a man, including bulletproof vests that have not been
adapted to women's figures. The atmosphere is made worse because
about 3% of supervisors over the rank of sergeant are women, in
part owing to lack of seniority. Milwaukee police officer Kay
Hanna remembers being reprimanded for going to the bathroom
while on duty. Chicago Lieut. DeWitte found condoms and nude
centerfolds in her mailbox when she started working patrol.

    Women cops who have fought discrimination in court have
fared well. Los Angeles officer Fanchon Blake settled a
memorable lawsuit in 1980 that opened up the ranks above
sergeant to women. Last May, New York City detective Kathleen
Burke won a settlement of $85,000 and a public promotion to
detective first-grade. In her suit she had alleged that her
supervisor's demeaning comments about her performance and his
unwillingness to give her more responsible assignments impeded
her professional progress. He denied the charges. But many women
still fear that complaining about such treatment carries its own
risks. Beverly Harvard, deputy chief of administrative services
in Atlanta, says a female officer would have to wonder "whether
she would get a quick response to a call for backup later on."

    Resistance toward women cops stems in part from the fact
that they are still relative newcomers to the beat. In the
years after 1910, when a Los Angeles social worker named Alice
Stebbins Wells became the country's first full-fledged female
police officer, women served mostly as radio dispatchers,
matrons, and social workers for juveniles and female prison
inmates. Not until 1968 did Indianapolis become the first force
in the country to assign a woman to full-time field patrol.
Since then, the numbers of women in policing have risen
steadily, thanks largely to changes in federal
antidiscrimination laws. Madison, Wis., boasts a 25% female
force, the highest percentage of any department in the country.

    Because female cops are still relatively few in number, a
woman answering a police call often evokes a mixed response.
Reno officer Judy Holloday recalls arriving at the scene of a
crime and being asked, "Where's the real cop?" Detective Burke,
who stands 5 ft. 2 in. and has weighed 100 lbs. for most of her
23 years on the force, says she made 2,000 felony arrests and
was never handicapped by a lack of physical strength. Burke
recalls subduing a 6-ft. 4-in., 240-lb. robbery suspect who was
wildly ranting about Jesus Christ. She pulled out her rosary
beads and told him God had sent her to make the arrest. ``You
use whatever you got," she says. When it looks as though a cop
may be overpowered, the appropriate response for any officer --
male or female -- is to call for backup. "It's foolish for a cop
of either sex to start dukin' it out," says Susan Martin, author
of On the Move: The Status of Women in Policing.

    A growing emphasis on other skills, especially
communication, comes from a movement in many police departments
away from traditional law enforcement into a community-oriented
role. In major cities such as New York, Houston and Kansas City,
the mark of a good officer is no longer simply responding to
distress calls but working in partnership with citizens and
local merchants to head off crime and improve the quality of
life in neighborhoods. In Madison, which has been transformed
from a traditional, call-driven department into a
community-oriented operation in the past 20 years, police chief
David Couper says female officers have helped usher in a
"kinder, gentler organization." Says Couper: "Police cooperation
and a willingness to report domestic abuse and sexual assaults
are all up. If a person is arrested, there is more of a feeling
that he will be treated right instead of getting beat up in the
elevator."

    In Los Angeles the city council is expected to pass a
resolution next month that will lead to a 43% female force by
the year 2000, up from 13.4% now. "We have so much to gain by
achieving gender balance, we'd be nuts not to do it," says
councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. Ideally, the solution in all cities
and towns is a healthy mix of male and female officers that
reflects the constituency they serve and the changing demands
of the job.