Thriving in an All-Boys Club

Cara Rabe-Hemp, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Criminal Sciences at Illinois State University. Rabe-Hemp is dedicated to increasing the participation of women interested in careers in CJS and co-sponsored the creation of Breaking Barriers, which was awarded the University’s Diversity Advocacy Award in 2010. Throughout her professional career she has examined how gender affects officers’ opportunities and experiences in the field of policing. She has been actively engaged with organizations which support women in law enforcement agencies, including the National Association of Women Executives in Law Enforcement, the National Association of Women and Police, and the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive Institute’s Conference on Women in Criminal Justice. Rabe-Hemp has published extensively in the area of women in law enforcement, with work appearing the top criminology/criminal justice journals, including Police Quarterly, Feminist Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management. In 2010, Cara was awarded the University Research Initiative Award, in 2014, she was inducted into the College of Applied Sciences and Technology Academy of Achievement, and in 2016 she was awarded the College of Applied Sciences and Technology Outstanding Researcher Award. In 2013, she was one of six women invited to a panel to discuss, “Contemporary Issues in Policing Research” at the American Society of Criminology Meeting.

Rabe-Hemp (Illinois State University) uses women’s firsthand accounts, media stories, and academic research to present the experiences of women in the US police force in the 1980s, 1990s, and present day. She weaves together the structural forms of inequality that women face in a nontraditional occupation—harassment, gatekeeping for sex segregation, barriers to advancement, etc. along with the cultural stereotypes of gender and motherhood that serve as barriers for women in police work. Rabe-Hemp explores how the field of police work has changed over the decades and how gendered conceptions impacted and were impacted by those changes. Importantly, the author contributes to academic discussions of the social construction of gender at work and how those conceptions trace back to some of the earliest examples of women in police work. Written in an accessible format, Roth-Hemp’s book blends an academic analysis of a highly gendered occupation with concrete advice and recommendations for women and men in police work.Summing Up: Recommended. General collections, lower-division undergraduates, and professionals.

• Preface Introduction: The History of Women in Policing: Matrons to Patrol Officers Section I: Female Police Officers of the 1980s: Title-Niners Chapter 1: Girls, Why Do You Want to Be Police Officers When You Grow Up? Chapter 2: Becoming a Police Officer Chapter 3: Changing the Gender of Policing Chapter 4: Facing the Intimidations of Harassment and Discrimination Chapter 5: Dangers on the Beat Section II: Female Police Officers of the 1990s: Crime-Fighters or Communication Experts Chapter 6: Community Policing Chapter 7: Pathways and Entering Police Work Chapter 8: Gaining Acceptance, Culture Shock Chapter 9: Making Rank: Glass Ceiling or Escalator? Section III: Female Police Officers of the 2000s: Career Minded and College Educated Chapter 10: Doing Policing Differently?Chapter 11: Women’s Work Chapter 12: Motherhood Chapter 13: Work and Life Balance Conclusion: The Current Status of Women Police and Future Directions