WOMEN POLICE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18184, 22 September 1924, Page 10

WOMEN POLICE.

USEFUL AS DETECTIVES. MORE WANTED AT THE "YARD." ; raou ore o\« coseespondsmt.) LONDON, August, IG.

; Declaring that women police have imi proved the efficiency of tho Force, the I Departmental Committee, appointed to consider their employment, recommends that more women should lx\ appointed for London. and comment: "Vo are satisfied that women can be usefully employed m investigation of crime generally. The committee, which was appointed l>v Air Arthur Henderson (the Homo Secretary), suggests that the numter ot women police appointed should equal the number engaged on such T° rk l 10->> It is interesting to note that tho chairman of the committee, Mr V C Bridgeman, was the Home he .re tarv in 1922, who reduced the personnel or London's women police from j <2O. The total strength m London ana the provinces is now 110. , On the general question ot emplnv mcnt. the committee found considerable diversity of opinion. There was also a difference of opinion among witnesses as to whether women or men were the best for preventive work. They consider that there are crimes, as well as offences of minor gravity, iu the investigation of which women, acting either alone or in company with nion have better chances of success, either because their sex helps to disguise their identity and purpose, or fjecauae it secures the confidence of those* from whom information is sought. "The circumstances of modern life, with its large degree of freedom from jHtrental control, have increased the number of growing girls brought into contact with temptation. Tho police might try to reduce or defeat this temptation by the exercise of eomo restraining influence. For this, women patrols were appointed. There is, hawever, a financial side to the question, and it has been suggested that, bocaviso trying to save growing girls from temptation is generally described as welfare work, it is definitely outside the scope of legitimate police duty perforrocd at tho public expense. We cannot recognise any hard and fastv line between welfare work and the policeman's duty to prevent crimo." Ilio committee suggest that a woman should be appointed to Scotland Yard to advise the Commissioner on matters connected with women police. For the present, women should not be regarded as substitutes for men, but ly it may be powiWo for nien and women to be considered aa interchangeable on certain dnties. Women employed solely on clerical duties should not bo regarded as policewomen. Neither do the committee consider that policewomen should bo drawn only ot mainly from the educated' classes. An appendix to the report gives the views of General Sir Nevil Macready, late Cbmmissioner of Police of the Metropolis, who declared in a letter to the committee that women police were first employed in London in policing the parks and open spaces. They were specially successful, as girls would appeal to them rather than to Salvation Armv officers.

"The difficulty, of coarse, with women, as with men, police, is to secure the right stamp oT person. My idea was to recruit a proportion of ail grades from educated women, who, if required, could pass as society women in evening dress down to the ordinary working class. The main point was to eliminate any woman of extreme views —the vinegary spinster or blighted middle-aged fanatic—and. to get broad-minded, kindly, sensible women, who would bring to bear common sens© in their dealings with their sisters who had taken a wrong turning, more often from the desire to_ lighten a dull eriatencft than from inherent vice.

"That the women polico should have power to arrest is, I think, essential, but this power should be restricted by police regulations so as to avoid absurd situations where enthusiastic women might try and exercise their authority under impossible circumstances, euch as, for instance, the "tackling of a burly drunken man. Above all things, amateur and unofficial organisations should be suppressed in the same way that bogus policemen are dealt with by law. These organisations in the past not only hampered the recognised women police, but at times brought the Force into disrepute through their misplaced activities being mistaken for those of the official Force." Sir Nevil added that when he was at the Yard women were already being Employed in C.I.D. work,"and; he would have extended the practice.