Anne Li Kringen
Professor of Criminology, Florida State University
Key Findings
- Literature on women and policing has grown in the past 40 years.
- Gender focused work on women and policing was found to be lower in mainstream criminology and justice journals (72.9%) when compared to policing (78.5%) or gender (100%) specialty journals.
- Specialty publications account for 65.3% of all research on women and policing, and the topic is still underrepresented in mainstream publications.
Description
In the article, “Scholarship on Women Policing: Trends and Policy Implications,” Kringen reviews literature on female police officers from 1972 to 2012 to examine how gender was incorporated in research over time. To conduct her research, Kringen analyzed and coded 604 studies that were scholarly and peer-reviewed works sourced from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Sociological Abstracts, and SocINDEX. Kringen found that 83.2% of her sample was published in specialty policing (36%) or gender (18.3%) specialty journals or general criminology or justice (28.8%) journals. Gender was the primary focus of 81.4% of the works, and 4.8% of the works highlighted gender even when it was not the focus. Studies primarily focused on gender were lower in mainstream criminology and justice journals (72.9%) when compared to policing (78.5%) or gender (100%) specialty journals. Kringen concluded that overall the scholarship on women and policing has increased but specialty publications account for 65.3% of research on women and policing and that the topic is generally underrepresented in mainstream journals.