Stereotypes of Women Professionals in Criminal Justice

Topic Stereotypes Of Women Professionals In Criminal Justice
Student’s Name
Institution
Supervisor’s Name
Date
Introduction
The engagement of women in the criminal Justice system as corrections officers, lawyers, Judges, police officer and by far as criminals have been highly stereotyped in most parts of the world. The truth is that the employment gains women have gotten in the criminal justice system are in most cases not true because most gains are found in the legislations that provide for affirmation action on employment of both male and female professionals (DeTardo-Bora, 2009). This essay discusses the stereotyping of women participation in the criminal justice system by looking at the evolution in the criminal justice system with regard to women engagement. This task will also show that there is still a negative perception and sexual discrimination and misrepresentation of women in the system.
Evolution of women professionals in criminal Justice
The growth of women working in the criminal justice system can be credited to the Los Angeles Social Worker Alice Stebbins who 1909 petitioned the Mayor of the city and legal fraternity to adopt an ordinance that allowed women to have an opportunity working as police officers. This measure later passed in 1910 where Mrs. Wells was appointed the only and first sworn female policewoman. In the subsequent year's 1916, the city also swore in Georgia Ann Robinson, a former governess from New Orleans as the first sworn African American police woman (cdn.laureate-media, 2017). This development was however dismissed with the launching of FBI where a bureau official J. Edgar Hoover in 1924 claimed that women would not make good officers and special agents because of their unpredictable nature. But most women made it back to the police force during the World War 2 since most men in the force had gone out of the country to fight. However, up to the 1960s women were still considered as better social workers that officers in the police force, they, however, remained defiant and in 1968 Indianapolis Police Department received Elizabeth Robinson and Betty Blankenship as first patrol women with car 47. Throughout to the 1970s, there was rising activism for equality and affirmative action on women professionals in the criminal justice (cdn.laureate-media, 2017). There was finally relief in the 1970s when the Congress passed an amendment to the civil rights act 1964 which prohibited local agencies and the state from discriminating against recruiting, hiring, promotion and working conditions on the basis of gender. Another breakthrough came in 1993 when Janet Reno was elected as the first woman Attorney General of the United States during the President Bill Clinton Administration (cdn.laureate-media, 2017).
Despite the progress, women professionals are still stereotyped while they serve in their criminal justice departments were career women looking for employment opportunities in the system are being sexually suspect, unwomanly, physically weak, loose, dangerous and emotionally unstable (Lantrip, et al., 2015). in some cases, women are not allowed to make independent judgments as their make bosses would consult a male officer for fear that the female officer is d...