blog 18

Christine, a 26 year old female friend of mine was telling me about the differences in testing to be a police officer. Some argue that it is sexist, but when they make it gender neutral there are more complaints that it is impossible for females to pass saying that they are weeding them out. On the other hand Christine probably could kick most men’s behinds. She has been doing extremely well in her exams but she does admit its hard to find her place in the classes as a female. She is a minority already, but all the films, training, and most of the educators are males. It will be hard for her to relate to females in her field once she is done with training, although her knowing how to do her job the way supervisors would is a great plus for her.

Correctional officers, that have watched the films have very low understanding of how female prisons work, how to speak with female inmates, and how they should interact with male inmates if they are female. By establishing these policies it leave a lot to be determined while on the job, training should include female based programs as well so that there is an understanding in all respects of the job. Women’s prisons seem to be a lot less strict and more comforting (not gender neutral) so after watching male based programming and training a lot of officers are thrown off by the extra ‘comforts’ the women have and the different procedures. Being in full understanding of procedures and what is expected and needed on the job should be part of the training but since it is male based/gender neutral it is not. It is interesting how the training becomes male oriented when it is being ‘gender neutral’ because many times being race neutral is being white. Stereotypes about the job and inmates become what is the ‘norm’ maybe they do this because it is easier for educators they do not have to go into the details and possible situations that could happen when females or minorities are involved. The job is predominantly male but women are growing into the field also the rise of female inmates should determine how officers are trained.