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It is impossible to discuss questions of training for any kind of work without first undertaking a "job analysis" of the work itself. In spite of the fact that readers of this page are already well informed with regard to the policewoman's work, one or two questions demand further discussion. In the first place, in spite of the name "policewoman" the woman officer does not and should not do the kind of work our police officers are actually doing. She is not a "policeman" engaged primarily in detecting crime; she is a social worker engaged in the most difficult kind of public welfare work. She needs of course a badge of official authority, but the fact that our so-called "women police" do not even wear uniforms shows how far their activities are from those of the regular police force. The women police are public guardians not in the technical but in the literal sense of those words. In her preface to Dr. Chloe Owing's new book, "Women Police," Mrs. Mina C. Van Winkle, President of the International Association of Policewomen and Director of the Women's Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C., describes the policewoman's activities as "preventive-protective work" and lays stress upon the appointment of women with "broad education and experience in social work."Thorough Foundations
The competent preventive-protective worker acting as a policewoman is really a social worker and needs the best training a good school of social service can give. Her work, of course, is specialized, as is the work of the prosecuting attorney, but the latter needs a sound legal education, not a specialized training course in criminal law. So the "policewoman" needs to be first of all in these days a mature woman with the liberal education of a university and the professional education of a good school of social work. She needs courses in family case work, child welfare, public welfare administration and the discipline of statistics and economics as well as courses in criminal law, criminology, and theory and practice in the narrower field of social hygiene and protective work.
The University of Chicago has not been hospitable to short "training courses" for policewomen because the University stands for thorough education for this as well as other professions. We have, however, been interested in providing during this past winter in our downtown college a special course in "Social Hygiene and Protective Work" for those who have already had the general training that a social worker needs, and we shall repeat the same course during the summer quarter when the National Travelers' Aid Association is having a summer institute at the University. This course, for which more than fifty persons have been enrolled, has had the assistance of the American Social Hygiene Association of New York; the Social Hygiene Council of Chicago; a local representative of the United States Public Health Service; the Social Hygiene League and the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago.
The policewoman needs to be a person of liberal education and she must have up-to-date knowledge of modern methods of social work and of social welfare theory. It is especially important that the organization of specialized courts such as the morals court and the probation service be understood in their larger aspects. The history and theory of the social hygiene movement should also be thoroughly studied. While the work of the policewoman may seem to be a "routine" character, she frequently has an influential part in the shaping of large social policies and she should be educated to play this part well. She has the chance to lead her community forward, but she can do this only if she understands both the theory of social progress, the lessons of the social experiments of the past and the goal of the future.
High Standards
The suggestion that women police should be university graduates may seem to be setting too high a standard for such work. But if we accept the fact that these women are to be competent social workers, it is necessary that they should also be university or college graduates. Social work has been in the past the stepsister of the professions rather than a respected member of the family group. But the past is neither the present nor the future and those of us who believe that social work deserves to rank with the liberal professions must believe also in a liberal education for such work. The generation of social workers now coming along is a university group, and, in general, the salaries of policewomen are high enough to attract women of this type. In many cities the salary of the policewoman is as high as the salary of a probation officer, of a visitor for the family welfare society, or an officer of a juvenile protective society. But whole university graduates who have had in addition a year of graduate professional work are found in these latter positions, the policewomen frequently ranks no higher than the average policeman in education and professional equipment.
The setting of high standards is a matter in which the universities, the professional schools of social service, and the influential women of the country must all work together. The duties of the policewoman may not be higher in type or more difficult than those of the policeman if the latter are properly understood, but the work of the policewoman certainly cannot be adequately performed by persons who have no more education than most of the men now filling positions in the police department. We must see to it that the standards for men police are raised, but in the meantime there is every reason for starting the policewoman's service on this newer and higher standard rather than on the old and admittedly unsatisfactory one.