Are Women Better Cops?

By JEANNE MCDOWELL LOS ANGELES

Among the residents, merchants and criminals of Venice, Calif., officer Kelly Shea is as well known as the neighborhood gang leaders. The blond mane neatly tied back, slender figure and pink lipstick violate the stereotype of guardian of law and order; but Shea, 32, has managed to win the respect of street thugs who usually answer more readily to the slam of a cop's billy club. She speaks softly, raising her voice only as needed. While her record of arrests during her 10 years on patrol is comparable to those of the men in her division, she has been involved in only two street fights, a small number by any cop's standard. Faced with hulking, 6-ft. 2-in. suspects, she admits that her physical strength cannot match theirs. "Coming across aggressively doesn't work with gang members," says Shea. "If that first encounter is direct, knowledgeable and made with authority, they respond. It takes a few more words, but it works."

Hers is a far cry from the in-your-face style that has been the hallmark of mostly male police forces for years. But while women constitute only 9% of the nation's 523,262 police officers, they are bringing a distinctly different, and valuable, set of skills to the streets and the station house that may change the way the police are perceived in the community. Only on television is police work largely about high-speed heroics and gunfights in alleys. Experts estimate that 90% of an officer's day involves talking to citizens, doing paperwork and handling public relations. Many cops retire after sterling careers never having drawn their gun.

As the job description expands beyond crime fighting into community service, the growing presence of women may help burnish the tarnished image of police officers, improve community relations and foster a more flexible, and less violent, approach to keeping the peace. "Policing today requires considerable intelligence, communication, compassion and diplomacy," says Houston police chief Elizabeth Watson, the only female in the nation to head a major metropolitan force. "Women tend to rely more on intellectual than physical prowess. From that standpoint, policing is a natural match for them."

Such traits take on new value in police departments that have come under fire for the brutal treatment of suspects in their custody. The videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King by four Los Angeles cops last year threw a spotlight on the use of excessive force by police. The number of reports continues to remain high across the country after the furor that followed that attack. Female officers have been conspicuously absent from these charges: the independent Christopher commission, which investigated the L.A.P.D. in the aftermath of the King beating, found that the 120 officers with the most use- of-force reports were all men. Civilian complaints against women are also consistently lower. In San Francisco, for example, female officers account for only 5% of complaints although they make up 10% of the 1,839-person force. "And when you see a reference to a female," says Eileen Luna, former chief investigator for the San Francisco citizen review board, "it's often the positive effect she has had in taking control in a different way from male officers."

Though much of the evidence is anecdotal, experts in policing say the verbal skills many women officers possess often have a calming effect that defuses potentially explosive situations. "As a rule, they tend to be much more likely to go in and talk rather than try to get control in a way that makes everyone defensive," says Joanne Belknap, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. Women cops, she has found, perceive themselves as peacekeepers and negotiators. "We're like pacifiers in these situations," says Lieut. Helen DeWitte, a 21-year veteran of the Chicago force who was the first woman in the department to be shot in the line of duty. Having women partners for 14 years taught San Francisco sergeant Tim Foley to use a softer touch with suspects, instead of always opening with a shove. "It's nonthreatening and disarming," he says, "and in the long run, it is easier than struggling."

Such a measured style is especially effective in handling rape and domestic- violence calls, in which the victims are usually women. In 1985 a study of police officers' treatment of spousal-abuse cases by two University of Detroit professors concluded that female officers show more empathy and commitment to resolving these conflicts. While generalizations invite unfair stereotyping, male officers often tend not to take these calls as seriously, despite improved training and arrest policies in almost half of all states. "Men tend to come on with a stronger approach to quiet a recalcitrant male suspect," notes Baltimore County police chief Cornelius Behan, whose 1,580-member force includes 143 women. "It gets his macho up, and he wants to take on the cop."

Despite the research, the notion of "female" and "male" policing styles remains a controversial one. Individual temperament is more important than gender in the way cops perform, argues Edwin Delattre, author of Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing. Other experts contend that aggressiveness among officers is more a measure of a department's philosophy and the tone set by its top managers. "When cops are trained to think of themselves as fighters in a war against crime, they come to view the public as the enemy," observes James Fyfe, a criminal-justice professor at The American University.

Some female officers have qualms as well about highlighting gender-based differences in police work, especially women who have struggled for years to achieve equity in mostly male departments. The women fear that emphasizing their "people skills" will reinforce the charge that they don't have the heft or toughness to handle a crisis on the street. But while women generally lack upper-body strength, studies consistently show that in situations in which force is needed, they perform as effectively as their male counterparts by using alternatives, such as karate, twist locks or a baton instead of their fists.

Yet the harassment that persists in many precinct houses tempts female cops to try to blend in and be one of the boys. All too often that means enduring the lewd jokes transmitted over police-car radios and the sexist remarks in the halls. In most places it means wearing an uncomfortable uniform designed for a man, including bulletproof vests that have not been adapted to women's figures. The atmosphere is made worse because about 3% of supervisors over the rank of sergeant are women, in part owing to lack of seniority. Milwaukee police officer Kay Hanna remembers being reprimanded for going to the bathroom while on duty. Chicago Lieut. DeWitte found condoms and nude centerfolds in her mailbox when she started working patrol.

Women cops who have fought discrimination in court have fared well. Los Angeles officer Fanchon Blake settled a memorable lawsuit in 1980 that opened up the ranks above sergeant to women. Last May, New York City detective Kathleen Burke won a settlement of $85,000 and a public promotion to detective first-grade. In her suit she had alleged that her supervisor's demeaning - comments about her performance and his unwillingness to give her more responsible assignments impeded her professional progress. He denied the charges. But many women still fear that complaining about such treatment carries its own risks. Beverly Harvard, deputy chief of administrative services in Atlanta, says a female officer would have to wonder "whether she would get a quick response to a call for backup later on."

Resistance toward women cops stems in part from the fact that they are still relative newcomers to the beat. In the years after 1910, when a Los Angeles social worker named Alice Stebbins Wells became the country's first full- fledged female police officer, women served mostly as radio dispatchers, matrons, and social workers for juveniles and female prison inmates. Not until 1968 did Indianapolis become the first force in the country to assign a woman to full-time field patrol. Since then, the numbers of women in policing have risen steadily, thanks largely to changes in federal antidiscrimination laws. Madison, Wis., boasts a 25% female force, the highest percentage of any department in the country.

Because female cops are still relatively few in number, a woman answering a police call often evokes a mixed response. Reno officer Judy Holloday recalls arriving at the scene of a crime and being asked, "Where's the real cop?" Detective Burke, who stands 5 ft. 2 in. and has weighed 100 lbs. for most of her 23 years on the force, says she made 2,000 felony arrests and was never handicapped by a lack of physical strength. Burke recalls subduing a 6-ft. 4- in., 240-lb. robbery suspect who was wildly ranting about Jesus Christ. She pulled out her rosary beads and told him God had sent her to make the arrest. "You use whatever you got," she says. When it looks as though a cop may be overpowered, the appropriate response for any officer -- male or female -- is to call for backup. "It's foolish for a cop of either sex to start dukin' it out," says Susan Martin, author of On the Move: The Status of Women in Policing.

A growing emphasis on other skills, especially communication, comes from a movement in many police departments away from traditional law enforcement into a community-oriented role. In major cities such as New York, Houston and Kansas City, the mark of a good officer is no longer simply responding to distress calls but working in partnership with citizens and local merchants to head off crime and improve the quality of life in neighborhoods. In Madison, which has been transformed from a traditional, call-driven department into a community-oriented operation in the past 20 years, police chief David Couper says female officers have helped usher in a "kinder, gentler organization." Says Couper: "Police cooperation and a willingness to report domestic abuse and sexual assaults are all up. If a person is arrested, there is more of a feeling that he will be treated right instead of getting beat up in the elevator."

In Los Angeles the city council is expected to pass a resolution next month that will lead to a 43% female force by the year 2000, up from 13.4% now. "We have so much to gain by achieving gender balance, we'd be nuts not to do it," says councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. Ideally, the solution in all cities and towns is a healthy mix of male and female officers that reflects the constituency they serve and the changing demands of the job.

With reporting by Georgia Pabst/Milwaukee