Experiment of Women Police Accepted

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 159, 8 July 1938, Page 15

Experiment of Women Police Accepted

“In every country wliere the instituton of women police lias been started as an experiment it is now an accepted organisation of public and social life,” said Airs Douglas, of London, who recently arrived at Auckland, to the Herald. Airs Douglas, who is interested in many large women’s organisations in England, including the National Council of Women, tho Women’s Institute, and the National Fence Alovemcnt, is on her first visit to New Zealand.

Speaking of the value of women police, Airs Douglas described the work of women in the suffragette movement and subsequently the formation of the first women’s police section by Commandant Alary Allen at the outbreak of tho Great War.

4 4 People who decried the militant suffragette and any suggestion of women police accept to-day as a normal state of affairs women detectives, aerial policewomen, and, in the United States, women at the head of polce departments,” said Airs Douglas. “Policewomen in every country where they have been established are going great work in combatting many social evils. 4 ‘ It is significant that everywhere where women police have been established they have never been abandoned,” she continued. 4 4 Their numbers are still too few but are growing more rapidly in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The necessity for women police is real in ever s country, as their work lies more in preventing crime than in punishing it.” . Airs Douglas spoke of official women police organisations in Britain, France Germany, the United States, China, Canada and Sweden. There were also organisations in Holland, Spain, Egypt, Ireland, Poland, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Turkey, Portugal and Finland. They existed now in almost every country and included women of almost every colour, religion and race. 4 4 The work of women police is naturally more concerned with women and children, and there is no tribute I can pay that praises too highly their work for child deliquents,” concluded Airs Douglas.