Women Police in a Changing Society

Book excerpt: Offering a fascinating account of the development of women police over the past twenty years, this book refers to the author's extended research in India to examine how the Indian experience demonstrates a valuable alternative to the Anglo-American model; not only for traditional societies but for women police in the West as well. With reference to the establishment in 1992 of all-women units in Tamil Nadu, this unique experiment proved highly successful in enhancing the confidence and professionalism of women officers and ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the police. At a time when policing is being rethought all over the world, not only in traditional societies, the Tamil Nadu practice illustrates important lessons for western countries that are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain women officers. Natarajan's remarkable book is an important and original contribution to the literature on gendered policing, which to date has concentrated almost exclusively on the US and British experience.