Steven Hale
1 min readJul 2, 2020

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The problems you describe that face women as police officers largely result from the fact that women are in the minority, either in the force in general or on patrol duty. We simply don't know what effect increasing the number of female officers would have. But your own quote provides a clue:

"In Jennifer Hunt’s study, she found that departmental norms incentivize officers to go beyond the force that their training recommends. Hunt also notes that female rookies tend to behave more aggressively than men as a way to prove themselves in a male-dominated environment. This seems to be borne out empirically by the finding that male-female pairs commit more excessive force than male-male."

Note the phrase "in a male-dominated environment." Let's see what women can do in an environment that's not male dominated.

If I’m reading correctly the chart you provide, the pairing least likely to use violence is (by far) female-female.

Two recent news stories suggest that women, even in a repressive, male-dominated workforce are capable of taking a courageous step:

The sergeant who found and turned in the video of the 3 Wilmington NC MALE officers eagerly anticipating killing black citizens was a WOMAN.

The black officer who stopped a white cop's stranglehold on a suspect was a WOMAN--and she was fired.

If you think reducing the number of police officers will have more impact than hiring more women, then try it. But when you lay off cops, start with the men.

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Steven Hale
Steven Hale

Written by Steven Hale

Music: Discovering the lost and forgotten. Politics: Exposing injustice. Screenwriting: Emotional storytelling.

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