Italy To Have First Women Police Soon

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29130, 16 February 1960, Page 18

Italy To Have First Women Police Soon

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

Approval by Parliament of a new law setting up the first Italian women police corps has set thousands of Italian policemen heaving sighs of relief. In addition to the pleasure of having female company in police stations, in canteens and clubs, and during police operations, the policemen will be freed of one of their greatest professional hazards—the occasional need to disguise themselves as a woman to catch a criminal.

The plan to create more than 550 policewomen as a modest start has just become law after a favourable vote in the Senate. The vote marks the victorious conclusion of a four-year battle by Italy’s small team of women Deputies to overcome the many prejudices against women police in a nation where few men believe in the equality of sexes. The women police corps is expected to be set up soon. It will include 103 female inspectors and 450 “police assistants,” aged between 24 and 32. All must be unmarried or widowed. The inspectors will rank among Europe’s best-educated police, because each will have to have a doctor’s degree in law or political science. Anti-vice Work The women, to be picked for their physical and moral stamina, will undergo a four months’ training course before being assigned to police forces. They will concentrate mainly on anti-vice work, where the need for women law enforcers has been much felt since last year's closure of licensed brothels throughout Italy, a step which drove thousands of prostitutes underground. Male police have often also complained of the “difficulties” which arise when women suspects have had to be searched or “frisked" for armS by male officers.

The law lists the official duties of the new corps as the prevention of crimes against morality, the family and hygiene, assistance in investigations into alleged offences by women and minors, and giving help to women or minors in a state of “moral and social abandonment.”

The Ministry of the Interior has not yet announced its plans concerning the uniform to be worn by Italy's first policewomen. Its choice is expected to be a key factor in society’s acceptance of women law enforcers in Italy. Stern-faced senior civil servants and police chiefs recently attended a secret fashion show to select one of several proposed policewomen’s uniforms worn by slim models.

The new corps—though not necessarily its uniform-—will be largely modelled on Britain’s women police, and the small corps formed by the Anglo-American forces in Trieste after World War (I, before the Free Territory became part of Italy.

Reception by Men Some officials and journalists have expressed concern at men’s reception to the Italian women police when they first appear on the streets. They wonder whether the policewomen will be treated like other women, for whom a normal token of appreciation by Italy’s exceptionally enterprising

“Romeos” is a wolf whistle or a pinch in a bus or a crowd. The women police law is the brainchild of a woman Deputy belonging to Italy’s ruling Christian Democratic Party, Mrs Maria Pia del Canton. A dynamic, 47-year-old teacher from Treviso, in northern Italy, she nursed the bill through its obstacle-ridden Parliamentary journey. Its successful passage was welcomed by male policemen who often in the past have had to impersonate women when acting as decoys to catch sex maniacs, or filling the other roles played in other countries by female police. One of the greatest impersonations of this type in Italian police history occurred before World War 11. One of the chief investigators of Rome’s criminal police, Giuseppe Dosi, who later became chief Inspector-General of the Italian police, had to pose as a beautiful Polish countess, Sacha Gawronska, for a series of meetings with a male member of Parliament during a delicate police inquiry. Less than a month before the passage of the new law, a hardfaced 'police sergeant here received much publicity when he shaved off his moustache and dressed up as a pretty girl to help capture two blackmailers.

The disguise was decided upon when a married woman in Primaville, a Roman suburb, reported that blackmailers had asked her to place 30,000 lire under a roadside stone, or have an alleged affair with another man revealed to her husband. The woman was told by the police to place the money under the stone. Well-built Sergeant Antonio Muziana slipped on a gay flower printed dress, put on heavy makeup, and sat in a car parked nearby “making love” to a plainclothes policeman. When the blackmailers arrived the two “lovers” leapt out and captured them, helped by six other policemen who were hiding among beer barrels in a parked lorry.