Female Police Officers’ Cultural Perceptions of the External Work Environment

Abstract

Many scholars have detailed the exclusion of female police officers from the traditional masculine occupational culture that endorses a detached suspicion of the public as a result of the inherent dangers of the street. Relatively few studies have directly examined how female officers perceive or respond to facets of this external (community) working environment. The present study uses survey data from officers in a large, urban police department to test for gender differences in two aspects of the external environment that are core to police cultural attitudes: perceptions of danger and suspiciousness toward civilians. Findings show that female officers perceive more danger and are more suspicious of civilians than their male colleagues do, though the differences are modest in magnitude. Implications for research and policy are discussed.