Straight Line
Women police in our criminal justice administration
A large part of police functions relate to incidents of neglect, destitution, abandonment and other personal difficulties. The police also have to deal with complex and serious problems of murder, robbery and assault. In dealing with these problems, police come across many children and women involved in the crime both as victims and offenders.
In situations as above, it has been seen that patient hearing and sympathetic understanding are needed to combat those problems. The question of appointing women police for better investigation of crimes concerning women and children was discussed at the international level as early as 1926.
The 26th session of the General Assembly of International Police Commission held in Lisbon, Portugal from 17 - 22 June 1957 classified the following duties that could be performed by women police:- Preventive duties like discovering neglected/abandoned wayward children, juveniles etc. without occupation or with tendency to become prostitutes;
- Teaching and helping school children to deal with traffic rules and regulations;
- Administrative duties of searching for runaway and absconding children;
- Establishing card index system for minors and females;
- As liaison in providing social, medical and school services;
- Suppressive duties as investigations of juvenile delinquents of both sexes and young women offenders;
- Interrogation of children, adolescents and sensitive women;
- Detection of clandestine prostitutes and searching arrested women etc.
Some of the chief duties to be performed by women police in Bangladesh are: helping in the investigation of crimes involving women and children; providing assistance to the local police in tracing missing women and children; recovering minor girls from the brothels and escorting them to rescue homes, courts and hospitals; recovery of women and girls involved in abduction and kidnapping cases; collection of intelligence, interrogation of juveniles, women offenders, under trials and witnesses; search and escort of women offenders; VIP and security duties; work relating to women passengers at airports and search of their persons and belongings; and providing assistance to the local police in evacuating women and children from disturbed areas during emergencies.
Empirical study reveals that women police have been found very useful in the investigation of cases pertaining to rape, unnatural deaths of women; family disputes; juvenile delinquency and immoral trafficking in women. In reality, they are given very few functions. Generally women police are not given independent charge for investigating crimes of sexual abuse, rape, dowry deaths etc. In most of the crimes committed by or against women, women police are used only as assistants to men police, wherever needed, but do not act as an independent identity.
The status of women in police, of late, has been considered indispensable, still the use of their potentialities are inadequate, sidelined and stagnant. They are not considered equal to their male counterparts. As such, in many vital areas of police work, women police remain underutilized.
Police women's progress has been beset by subtle barriers, largely generated by the traditional belief held by many, that women are more emotional and less capable to sustain the pressures of police duties. Much of the resistance to the acceptance and promotion of women in policing is a product of cultural bias. Strongly rooted traditional concepts of the role and status of women in our society have tended to preclude objective appraisal of the true capabilities of women in the law enforcement field.
Concerned authority in police administrations, by and large, resists recruitment of women in police force on several grounds, some of which are:- Women are not emotionally or physically equipped to handle men's job of policing;
- A female officer on the street may get killed or injured while on duty;
- A female officer on the street may get raped by a sexual deviate criminal;
- Women in police may provide disciplinary problem during training and throughout their career;
- Police women who get married and have children, resign the job and are loss to the police department;
- Women are not desirable because they have higher turnover rates and a higher degree of absenteeism than males; and
- Resentment of male officers to work under female supervision.
The above considerations have largely impeded the expansion of the role of women in policing. There is an absence of policy and determination to make greater use of the potentialities of women police. Though women have made an entry into the law enforcement field, there is great variation in the use of women police all over the country. This is due to the lack of realization of the need of women in law enforcement. It is an accepted fact now that historically and traditionally, law enforcement has been viewed as a crime suppressive task performed by men.
Another dimension of the problem is the image of women police. They are viewed as a "half masculine, half feminine individuals" or "super masculine", which go around belting people. This is mainly due to the lack of knowledge about women police and their functions and the negative attitude held by people. Women police force should emerge as an effective, strong and determined force to act as instrument of social change to raise the status of women in society and to fight against the crimes concerning women.
There are two schools of thought about the functions assigned to women police. One believes in assigning only a limited range of functions to them, while the other advocates their deployment in general, for all the functions that are assigned to their male counterparts.
The National Police Commission of India, 1981, in their fifth report, mentioned that besides playing the limited roles, women police can perform other duties like traffic duties in big cities, general foot or vehicular patrol duty, prosecution/immigration duties, finger printing work in CID, instructors in police training institutes, crime prevention work such as giving talks in secondary schools on police work and road safety and regulations, drug related case work, technical and document examination work and duty of police driver etc.
An overview of the crime situation in the country reveals that there has been a rapid increase in the number of crimes, especially in the socio-economic field, in which a large number of women, both as victims and as offenders are involved. In spite of so much protection provided by law, women remained unprotected not only by the law breakers, but also by the so-called law protectors, i.e. the policemen. It is not uncommon to read in newspapers about the incidents of policemen misbehaving with women.
Police women are generally concentrated in big cities and towns; small towns and villages have no access to them. Thus, there is an urgent need to deploy more women in the police force in order to give better deal to crimes concerning women as well as to have a better access to the women population as a whole.
There should be a stable policy indicating the percentage of women police complements in our police force. A certain percentage of police stations should be headed by women. This will inspire and boost the confidence of women, who represent negligible number at present in the total police force.
Setting-up of police stations headed by women will go a long way in providing justice to the innocent victims and putting up an end to the problem of custodial violence. The sensitive areas concerning the detection of crime on or by women can be handled with much ease at all-women police stations which will provide congenial / fearless atmosphere for interrogation and investigation. This will also enable women victims to lodge their complaints without embarrassment and fear.
The police force is likely to launch a new gender reorientation programme. The entire police force should undergo the gender-sensitization courses. This should prove an appreciative move towards harmonious coexistence of men and women within the organisation.
The time to completely integrate women into police force is still not ripe in Bangladesh. Women police should be involved on a priority basis in all functions concerning women, in addition to other police duties. As Bangladeshi women are passing through a period of transition, a large number of women need more and more help of women police, as protector, as defender and as agent of social change.
Women in police are to play an entirely different role as compared to their female counterparts in other professions. Police culture is characterized by authoritarian attitude, tough and complex nature of job, fear and anger provoking situations and negative public image. Women police, in taking up this non-traditional profession, need to be given considerate attitude and full cooperation by the members in the department as well as the members in the family.
A proper understanding and realization of the roles and status of women police in Criminal Justice System will definitely enable them to excel in the police job which ultimately aims towards a peaceful society.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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