TRAINING COMPLETED

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 7, 3 October 1941, Page 4

TRAINING COMPLETED

First Women Police In

New Zealand

THREE FOR WELLINGTON

The first 10 women police in New Zealand have completed their training and will‘take up their, duties next week. Three are to be stationed in AVellingtou. They will serve a 12 months’ probationary period before being considered for permanent appointment. _ Addressing the women at a parade, the Prime Minister and Minister in Charge of the Police Department, Mr. Fraser, told them that they represented an innovation in the Police Force, aud that the selection bad been made with very great care. He was pleased with the progress they had made, and with the results of their examinations. As pioneer policewomen, he felt that they realized that a great responsibility rested on tbeir shoulders. The Government was particularly anxious that the experiment should be an unqualified success, and he had confidence that the women who were going out on duty would work honestly, earnestly, and efficiently in the discharge of their responsible tasks, and that the result would bring benefit to the community, particularly to women aud children. “I expect that these women will be a very valuable adjunct to the police services in general,” said the Commissioner of Police, Mr. D. J. Cummings, in a statement yesterday. “They are a very fine type both mentally and physically, and they have been coached for four months in a great variety of subjects, including physical training aud such branches of Jaw and regulations considered necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they will be called upon to perform.” Not To Wear Uniforms.

Mr. Cummings said that the women would not wear uniforms, but would be attached to the detective staffs. Their duties would consist largely of making inquiries into complaints in respect of women and children and young girls, and their work would be confined largely to their own sex. Besides actively investigating complaints, they would take a kindly interest in the welfare of all women aud girls coming under their notice. It was intended, he said, that the women police would make regular visits to public parks and various places of amusement, sueh as theatres and picture shows, and they would also undertake duties designed to safeguard school children against undesirable types. , . ... Another branch of work in which it was expected that the women would prove valuable was in the detection of shoplifters. Here, in addition to being in a better position for observation, they would be able immediately to carry out a search of the suspected culprit. In the taking of statements from women and girls who had been victims of .assault they would be of particular value, and it was also expected that they would be closely identified with cases which come before the Children’s Court.

The women police have trained under Senior-Sergeant D. C. Beard. Three are to be stationed in Auckland and two each in Christchurch and Dunedin.