tective Bureau any cases which come to their attention which do not involve young girls and women.

Women officers are at all times available to the Men's Department if needed for work on special cases. The request for a woman officer must come from the Commanding Officer of the Precinct to the Director of the Women's Division.

The present staff of the Women's Division consist of the Director and 31 women police. During the years 1923 and 1924, the cases handled by the different departments were as follows:35

The police department has 13 matrons working under the Director of the Women's Division. In addition to caring physically for the women prisoners in the custody of the police, they escort them to and from court or to local institutions and accompany men officers when they escort women to and from another city. One matron is assigned to the same duty with juveniles and also chaperones them during court sessions.

35 Annual Report, 1924, Police Department, Detroit, Michigan.

CHAPTER IX

THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1922 (Continued)

New York City-Portland, Oregon-St. Louis-Washington, D. C.-State Women Police of Connecticut.

NEW YORK CITY

In New York City among the first of the peacetime organizations which saw and attempted to solve the social problems created by the massing of large numbers of soldiers and sailors in the city during the war, was the New York Probation and Protective Association through the Girls' Protective League and its branches. On July 4th and 5th, 1917, 40 representatives from the membership of the branches met in conference to discuss "how can we do more to protect girls in war time." 2 After investigation the League made a report to the New York Police Department concerning conditions near certain recruiting stations, small parks and subway stations. As a result of these representations, additional police officers were stationed in these districts.

1 Now the Girls' Service League of America.

2 New York Probation and Protective Association Report for the year ending September, 1917.

In June, 1917, the Mayor's Committee of Women on National Defense had called a conference of interested agencies to consider the "Girl Problem in New York." As a result of their deliberations they organized a special section of Social Welfare with a Committee on Protective Work for Girls, of which Miss Stella Miner, of the New York Probation and Protective Association, was made chairman.

In order to determine and to demonstrate clearly the kind of program needed for effective protective work for girls in New York City, this Committee in July, 1917, placed in the field 2 women especially trained in methods of work for girls and who were given police powers. The time of these two women was devoted to searching out individual girls to the end of preventing delinquency and to discovering conditions conducive to delinquency. Workers from the Girls' Protective League assumed responsibility for follow-up work with girls who came to the attention of the two protective officers.

During the first two months the 2 officers with police powers had dealt with 708 girls. The Committee on Social Welfare considered that this situation justified a request that the city pay salaries for 6 protective officers with police powers who should work within the police department. These salaries were included in the budget, and passed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment with the approval of the Mayor. The Board of Aldermen, however, dis

3 Protecting Girls in War Time. Stella A. Miner. Proceedings New York City Conference of Charities and Correction, 1918.

proved this expenditure and the item for salaries for protective officers failed of final passage.

The Girls' Protective League had already adopted a plan of assigning 1 protective worker to each of 7 selected districts for the purpose of following up and befriending the girls discovered by the two protective officers. Now that the money for the salaries was not forthcoming, the association met this situation by special appropriations together with money provided by several other social agencies and by certain individuals. Until their disbandment at the end of 1917 the work was carried on under the official auspices of the Committee on Social Work of the Mayor's Committee of Women on National Defense. After this time the work was under the direction of the Girls' Protective League. Miss Miner as chairman was directly responsible for the organization and supervision of the work of the women officers, which included scouting on the streets, in the parks and around the camps, armories, recruiting stations; visiting dance halls, moving-picture theaters, amusement parks, and investigating furnished room houses, places of employment, restaurants, railroad terminals, tenement hallways and other places where conditions had been criticized.

Until August, 1918, when official policewomen were appointed by the city, these protective officers were given police powers.

Annual Report, New York Probation and Protective Association,

Meanwhile, in the winter of 1917, Mrs. Mary E. Hamilton entered the Missing Persons Bureau of the Police Department as a volunteer, where she was joined early in 1918 by Mrs. Ethel H. Gay." In January, 1918, the newly appointed Commissioner of Police, Richard E. Enright, named as Fifth Deputy Police Commissioner, Mrs. Ellen O'Grady, formerly a probation officer attached to one of the Magistrates Courts of Brooklyn. Mrs. O'Grady was the first woman deputy commissioner appointed to duty in the New York and probably in any police department. She received full rank and full pay. The work of the Fifth Deputy Commissioner's office was considered to be vitally important as it aimed to eliminate delinquency by building up strong forces for removing temptation and for the protection of children and youth."

Her principal duties, as outlined by the departmental reports, comprised:

(a) Supervision of all conditions relating to White slave Traffic.

(b) Crimes and offenses affecting women and girls.

(c) Social Welfare.

(d) Protection of Juveniles.

In line with this innovation, 10 policewomen were added to the Force. Eight were assigned to duty under the Fifth Deputy Commissioner and 2 to the Bureau of Missing Persons. These first 10 police

5 Now Mrs. Harry H. Corbin.

6 Annual Report, New York Police Department, 1920, page 235.