GIRL DETECTIVES

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1940, Page 4

GIRL DETECTIVES

“DECOY DORAS” IN ACTION Crime in England’s Home Counties and the London Metropolitan Police area has receded to low-record levels recently. Thieves, pickpockets, smash-and-grab raiders, burglars, and similar public enemies have become respectable citizens, for various reasons. The many challenges by sentries have cramped their style, and enthusiastic recruits to the Home Guard have been asking them awkward questions after darkness has fallen. But there is another reason for the decrease in crime—“ Decoy Dora”‘is on duty. Twelve young London policewomen have already been transferred to Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department. Many of the regional police forces, too, are contemplating using more plain-clothes women police decoys. Their clothes won’t be too plain, however, for the whole success of the scheme depends on using attractive women who could not be singled out in a crowd for having stern features, mannish hair-styles, big feet or any of the details usually associated with the popular (but usually untrue) conception of a policewoman. The C.I.D. first contemplated using women police decoys to foil black-out hand-bag snatchers. To cope with the anticipated crime wave these brave women must be prepared to face all manner of risks. Certainly there is room in police work for the activities of Decoy Doras, and war-time Britain may be safer for their bravery. Under cover of the black-out, gambling dens have been opened in various centres not only in London. High-stake faro is played in the majority, and women touts are used to lure officers and Dominion soldiers, who, with their higher pay are profitable dupes. Decoy women police can stop crimes of this nature, for the touts continue to operate so long as they do not see any of the male C.I.D. plain-clothes men, many of whom are well-known to the crooks.

A decoy woman policeman investigates without arousing suspicion, and can get evidence that would otherwise be impossible. A crook in a hurry may be tempted to say, “Oh, it’s only a woman”—and get on with his job.

Two I.R.A. men, now serving twenty-year sentences, were trapped by a policeman who, with her colleagues, worked 18 hours a day following various stray clues and scraps of information until the necessary evidence was built up. Male police would have found much of that work almost impossible to carry out without arousing suspicion. At Nottingham, when Harry Gamble was convicted of the murder of his wife, it was disclosed that the valuable work in the discovery of the body —upon which the conviction depended—was undertaken by Miss Marjorie Garratt, a policewoman in the Nottingham City Force. Many of the cleverest women at Scotland Yard are now engaged on such important work as counterespionage, but until the war is won, the full story of their dangerous work in tracking Fifth-columnists cannot be reveal£d. ■■ A

“Con” men cannot travel so far now without coming -under the notice of the police, and the best coastal hotels

where they often met their rich victims are now within the banned area. They, cannot, moreover, make a fast get-away without having to pass through military barriers on main trunk-roads. So they are restricted to limited movements in cities, and must.work more subtly; women police decoys now stand a better chance of eavesdropping on hotel vestibule conversations, that are often a prelude to the activities of “can” men and sharepushers.

POST-WAR CRIME WAVE. By stopping many crimes before they can happen, by covering the ground on which smash-and-grab, sex or confidence crooks may work, women detectives are disillusioning z many potential criminals who thought they’d have a heyday now that the police regulars, have their hands full with aliens and war-jobs. Decoy Doras are not only doing a useful job now, but are helping to prevent a post-war wave of crime such as w e experienced after the last war. The last war period saw a decrease in crime. Serious offences dropped from 7,738 in 1914 to 3,486 by. Versaillestime— -a fall of about 55 per cent., and burglary and house-breaking decreased by 60 per cent. By the end of the war the average male prison population was 60 per cent, less than pre-war, ‘and it was found possible to close down a-quarter of the whole prison accommodation of Britain!

Then came the post-war crooks—the motor-bandits, the smash-and-grabbers, the cat-burglars and all the riff-raff who copied everything that looked profitable from the crime and slum-life of America. Gangsterism ran riot, and indictable crimes jumped by 20,000 within a very short time. It is to prevent such a . post-war crime wave that women police are now going into action. If they disillusion war-time criminals, these people will go out of business, and won’t start up again when the war is over. I am sure you will agree that the pay, in proportion to the risks plainclothes women police are taking, is not over-generous. During their special training at Peel House they are paid £2 a week, and wear their own clothes, usually a dark-blue or grey costume and white blouse. On decoy work they get a plain-clothes allowance, and the pay for constables ranges from £2/16/- to £4 a week. It is greatly, to the credit of these brave women that they are prepared in the course of duty to face unspeakable risks for a weekly wage no more than that of a city secretary, who sits in comfort at her desk, and goes home soon after tea.