ABSTRACT
Gender as a focus of research within criminal justice research is a rather late contender as an analytic device to examine policing. Not an issue to attract significant funding, nor considered a mainstream interest, nonetheless there has been in recent years a burgeoning of studies examining the roles and experiences of women police officers. There were three distinct points of reference that stimulated authors' research interest. The first was an admiration for the early twentieth century women pioneers who advanced the right to vote and to enter areas of work that had, hitherto, been exclusively male domains. The second was an experience the author had when being given an introduction by a woman sergeant to the police force where he had recently arrived to take over the research department. The third was an intriguing result of the first major study the author conducted whilst working for the police. This was an examination of stress amongst police officers.
