National Conference For Women In Police

The Requirements and Needs For Training
Police Personnel with Special Reference to Women Police

By
Dr. K.R. Shyamsundar, IPS, Addl. Director General of Police, Training, Tamil Nadu

IX. Empowerment of women in the police

There have been two significant initiatives with regard to empowerment of women in the police. One was a National Workshop on Gender and Law Enforcement followed by regional workshops organised by National Commission for Women in collaboration with NGOs. The other was the "Springboard" programme modeled on the "Gender Agenda" launched in the UK. The perceptions of men and women differ as listed below:

From the perceptions of women police personnel it is clear that the women police personnel in unequivocal
terms express their confidence to undertake any type of job. As of now, the present training approach is more militaristic in nature having less compatibility with the job responsibilities of the women police personnel and also there is a mismatch between the individual expectation of policewoman and the organisational goal owing to the ambiguous policy. The need of the hour is to have an unambiguous policy by Government either to recruit 10% to 30% women in police organisation with an undertaking for their preparedness to do all functions without any excuse of highlighting the dilemma of confronting with the traditional and non-traditional roles or to use women police in certain specialized areas capitalizing their feminine positive qualities by forming a separate force of women police.

Though the training is similar to that of their male counterparts in almost all the States, their services are utilized for specific roles only resulting in frustration for career oriented women personnel and also

Men’s Perception	Women’s Perception
Gender Stereotype / Springboard
Women suited for feminine functions.	Can perform all functions.
Take same pay but do less work.	Do more work
Not enthusiastic of career minded.	Committed.
Difficult to cope with police.	No problem.
Cannot work in operations.	Can handle everything.
Too gentle and soft.	Can be tough when needed.

giving a room for criticism for getting equal pay without undertaking risky jobs. Once there is a clear cut policy then the training can be related to the job requirements. With 500 million women in India, there is no second opinion that to meet their needs the women police must be given a larger role. Professional, well-trained women leaders in police can play the role of motivators and agents of change.

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