ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the extent to which questions relating to gender pervade the work of the criminal justice professions. In Chapter 1 it was noted that there is certainly an uneven distribution of employment patterns between the different arms of the criminal justice process with respect to sex. For example, while voluntary work associated with the criminal justice system seems to be taken up fairly evenly between the sexes, policing is still a male-dominated organisation, with other branches of the criminal justice system (with the exception of the judiciary) falling somewhere between the these two extremes. In addition, it should be noted that the higher one moves up in the criminal justice process as an employee, the more likely it is to be male dominated. In some respects it must be said that with respect to sex employment ratios, the criminal justice system mirrors other aspects of the labour market. It is both vertically segregated, that is, the higher one moves up the organisation the less women are found; and horizontally segregated, that is, certain tasks are seen to be female tasks and others are seen to be male. The efforts that have been made to overcome these patterns of segregation have been varied in their success within the criminal justice system, though as in all areas of work, they take their toll not only of the people doing the job but also on those in receipt of their work. In this
particular context that means complainants and defendants (victims and offenders). This chapter will explore the gendered nature of criminal justice work with these kinds of questions in mind and, given that most people who come into contact with the criminal justice system do so through contact with a police officer and that is the arena in which the questions of concern here have been most frequently considered, we shall start with an exploration of these questions in relation to policework.
