Women Police in Weimar: Professionalism, Politics, and Innovation in Police Organizations

Abstract

This article details the history and philosophy behind attempted major changes in police tradition and organization that were fostered by women between 1920 and 1931 in Germany. Women police, led by Josefine Erkens and influenced by their background as social workers, tried to develop a social-work–oriented policing. Erkens held successive leadership positions in Cologne, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. With each new position she pioneered ways of thinking about the role of women in police work and about the relation between social work as a profession and policing as a profession. She became a controversial figure and was finally dismissed from her position in Hamburg. The case examined in this paper shows the influence on police of gender role uncertainty, interest group pressures, the political environment, and conflicting views of police professionalism. The article also discusses the difficulties involved in trying to integrate within one organization two disparate professional paradigms: that of law enforcement, with its emphasis on deterrence, and that of social work, with its emphasis on rehabilitation.