The policewomen in the law enforcement organization: Their participation and hitches

Women are mostly relegated to perform clerical roles or jobs as dispatchers until the women's liberation movement of the 1970s when popular television shows suddenly dramatized the new breed of women cops and detectives. Civil rights and affirmative action laws paved the way for women to assume law enforcement jobs traditionally held by men. Today, women walk the bat, but not without challenges. This study was conducted to determine the involvement of women on law enforcement focusing primarily on their profile and problems they encountered in the enforcement of the law. This study utilized the descriptive normative research design. This design described the profile of the respondents as well as the involvement of policewomen in law enforcement and in the determination of the different problems they have encountered in the discharge of the functions in law enforcement. This study made used of the questionnaire as the main data gathering tool which was consisted of three parts. Part I generated data on the profile of the respondents, Part II on the activities where policewomen are involved as law enforcers and the last part on the problems encountered by the policewomen in law enforcement. Findings of the study showed that respondents are relatively young, college graduates and have been in the service for quite a long period of time and performing functions in relation to police patrol, apprehend and investigate women offenders, do office work and other activities performed by policeman. It was also found out that the police women have encountered problems such as the lack of cooperation among the clients and far-flung barangays of the municipality which could hardly be reached at time during emergency calls. Based from these findings, this study concludes that policewomen do perform functions similar to what the policemen do. The proportion of policewomen in the station compared to the number of policemen is relatively in proportion in number. With these developments in the conduct of the study, it is recommended that regular consultation and meeting with the community residents should be conducted to establish a strong partnership with the local residents and maintain the virtue of cooperation while informing them of their roles as partners in the enforcement of the law. It is further recommended that additional policewomen be absorbed to strengthen the manpower of the PNP station in order to properly address the problems of women clients in the municipality.