WOMEN POLICE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 September 1924, Page 12

WOMEN POLICE.

USEFUL AS DETECTIVES

MORE WANTED AT THE “YARD.”

LONDON, Aug. 16. Declaring that women police have improved the efficiency ot the Force, the Departmental Committee, appointed to consider their employment, recommends that more women should he appointed for London, and there is the comment: “We are satisfied that women can be usefully employed in the investigation of crime generally.” The committee, which was appointed by Mr Arthur Hnderson (the Home Secretary), suggests that. the . number of women police appointed should equal the number engaged on such work in 1922. It is interesting to note that the chairman of the committee, Mr W.' C. Bridgeman,. was the Home Secretary in 1922, who reduced the personnel of London’s women police from 111 to 20. The total strength in London and the provinces is now 110.

A r ARYING VIEWS

On the general question of employment the committee found considerable diversity of opinion. There was also a difference of opinion among witnesses as to w’hether women or men were the best for preventive work. They consider that there are crimes, as well as offences of minor gravity, in the investigation of which women, acting either alone or in company with men, have letter chances of success, either because - Their sex helps to disguise their jdontity and purpose, or because it secures the confidence of those from whom information is sought.

MODERN LIFE AND GIRLS

“The circumstances of modern life, with its large degree of freedom .from parental control, have increased • the number of growing girls brought into contact with temptation. The police might try to reduce or defeat this temptation by the exercise of some restraining influence. For this women patrols were appointed. . . There is, however, a financial side to the question, and it has been suggested that, because trying to save growing girls from temptation is generally described as welfare work, it is definitely "outside the scope of legitimate police duty performed at the public expense. We cannot recognise any , hard and fast line between welfare work and the policeman’s duty to prevent crime.” The 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 ultimately it may be possible for men arid women to be considered as interchangeable on certain duties. Women employed solely on clerical duties should not be regarded as policewomen. Neither do the committee consider that policewomen, should he drawn only or mainly from the educated classes. THE VINEGARY SPINSTER AND BLIGHTED FANATIC.

An appendix to the report gives the views of General Sir Nevil Macready, late Commissioner of Police for 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 Army officers. “The difficulty, i of course, with women, as with men, police, is to secure the right stamp of person. My idea was to recruit a ‘proportion of all 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 broadminded, kindly, sensible women who would bring to bear common sense in their dealings with their sisters who had taken a wrong turning, more often from the desire to lighten a dull existence than from inherent vice.

TACKLING “DRUNKS.”

“That the women police should have power to arrest is, I think, essentia], but this power should be restricted by police regulations 6o as to avoid absurd situations where enthusiastic women might try and exercise their authority under impossible circumstances, such as, for instance, the tackling of a burly drunken man. Above all things, amateur and unofficial organisations should be suppressed in ■'lie same wily that bogus policemen are dealt with by law. These organisations in the past have not only hampered the recognised women police, it at times brought the force ’into d’srepute through their misplaced activities being mistaken for those of ile official force.”

Sir Nevil added that when he w.- s at the Yard women were already being employed in C.I.D. work, and he would have extended the practice. The members of the committee are: Mr W. C. Bridgeman, M.P., formerly Home Secretary (chairman); Mrs Eleanor Barton, Sir Leonard Dunning, Sir William Gentle, Alderman R. H. Millican, and Dame Helen GwynneVaughan.