WOMEN'S POLICE WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19698, 26 July 1927, Page 9

WOMEN'S POLICE WORK.

EXPERIENCE IN CANADA.

RESPECT OF THE PUBLIC

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]' VANCOUVER, June 30. "Policewomen are not intended to take away the legitimate pleasuies of young people, but to protect and'assist them. There aro mayn places where a policewoman is needed, where she can make adjustments when the trouble first begins, for moat crime begins with some social maladjustment." This is the viewpoint, expressed in a lecture here, by Miss Helen Pidgeon, formerly of tho Federal police force in Washington, and lecturer in tho Goorge Washington University. "The police of Canada enjoy an advantage over tho police of tho United States, in that they havo public opinion and the respect of the community behind them," Miss Pidgeon observed. Assimilation of non-national elements occupied much of the attention of tho women police, she added. In America, when an Austrian was brought into the country, ho had to bo assimilated with Italian, Chinese and Spanish elements in ihe social amalgam. Working through his wife, tho women police were able to do much toward grafting the national characteristics on tho nowcomer. Details of policewomen's work were supplied to the audience by Mrs. E. W. Harris of the police force of Seattle, a Pacific' Cpast city of half a million people. With fifteen years experience to guide her, she regretted that the success they had hoped for at the initiation of the movement had not altogether been accomplished. They had no precedent to guide them, no teacher, and had to foster their own development. The work comprised patrol, or preventive work, on streets and in public places; investigation of ensas of women prisoners, with the viow to aiding them to recover their liberty; and prosecution for crime, in both the public and children's Courts.