Louise Westmarland, Gender and Policing: Sex, Power, and Police Culture

Authors

Maria D. H. Koeppel, Sam Houston State University

Abstract

"Originally released in 2001, Louise Westmarland’s Gender and Policing has been released with a new publisher. With Routledge’s rerelease of the book, it is necessary to reassess the value of its research in the field of gender and policing to determine if it is still relevant. Throughout the book, Westmarland uses qualitative data to explore gendered themes in United Kingdom police forces. More specifically, her work focuses on whether differential deployment exists in policing based on gender and explores the role of gender within policing culture in several different situations. To analyze possible gendered patterns, Westmarland bases her work on two case studies: One on a rural police force of about 1,300 officers, and one on a metropolitan police force of about 3,000 officers. In addition to the six months of ride-alongs and participant observations in each force, the author conducted in-depth interviews with over 35 officers and focus groups with an additional 35 officers."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Koeppel, Maria D. H. (2013) "Louise Westmarland, Gender and Policing: Sex, Power, and Police Culture," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 11.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol1/iss1/11