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Women and Minorities in Policing

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Women and Minorities in Law Enforcement
Throughout policing history the roles of women and minorities have changed tremendously. In this paper I will discuss the role of women and minorities throughout policing history, how it has changed over time, how the change has affected modern policing agencies and compare women and men police recruits.
In 1972 the act “Tittle VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act” prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of color, race, religion or sex (Grant & Terry, 2008). Policing was considered to be a white man’s job and if any women were hired they were more like social workers. Because laws were created there was political pressure to hire women and minorities.
Overtime the role of women and minorities have changed because of the increase of hire rates among them. A major change in women policing is that women were assigned to patrol duty (Walker & Katz, 2011). According to Walker & Katz, Hispanic and African American officers are the majority in some departments today. There are also gay and lesbian officers.
The roles changing have affected modern policing agencies such as women and minorities holding high ranks. There has also been an increase in diversity among police departments which may have been difficult at times.
When the police were looking for recruits the males more than likely didn’t have a high school diploma and were only required to know how to speak, read and write English well enough to get by. The women recruits were different from men they had to have an education to a high school graduate.

References
Grant, H.B,. & Terry, K.J. (2008). Law Enforcement in the 21st century (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ Pearson/Prentice Hall

Walker, S., & Katz, C.M. (2011) The police in America: An introduction (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

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