WOMEN POLICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 201, 23 August 1920, Page 4

WOMEN POLICE.

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. Though the authorities seem to agree • that the appointment of women police : would be an excellent thing, the difficulty ■ is to secure the right type of women for this work, because the women who make the best officers are of the class which will not take up the work. The question was discussed when the : Justice Department's estimates were before Parli-unent, Dr. Newman, and ; also Mr. T. M. Wilford, a former Minister of Justice, urging that something should he done in the matter if possibleMr. Wilford's experience as a Minister was, he said, that there was plenty of material from which to make appointments of a sort, but the women were not suitable, and the most suitable women would not apply. He gave the result of his inquiries when in America recently, declaring, on the authority of the San Francisco chief of police that women police were simply invaluable. They could do work which ordinary policemen could not perform. That city also had a squad of plain clothes women policemen, known as "the moral brigade" which looked after, the streets, and the result of their work was that in the American cities where they were to be found a woman or a girl could walk in the street at any hour of the day or night absolutely without molestation, addresses from strangers, or comments from men such as were unfortunately heard in New Zealand towns when women passed in the street. No man would risk taking a liberty with women in the street, because he never knew whether the wo.non police would not take action, and if they did so, they were | backed by severe penalties imposed in the courts. But Mr. Wilford, who is an 1 experienced lawyer, had something further to say about the difficulties of employing women in the administration of ; justice- "You know that a woman deI clares she can 'pick' a man as soon as she sees bim. They call it intuitive genius, but the number who come to mc afterwa'ds to get separations makes mc doubt it." The Hon. E. P. Lee has taken over the control of the Police Department so recently that he was unable to indicate his policy to the House, but he undertook to look into the question at the earliest opportunity.