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preventive-protective work is in itself the best argument that this is primarily a public function. Policewomen in general stand firmly in the belief that private social workers must cease to think of the police as a thing apart in the community and must, instead, become their strongest allies.

Women's organizations and policewomen are striving for the establishment of Women's Bureaus in police departments whether formed of one or more women with a woman directing each bureau, who shall be immediately responsible to the department head and shall have rank equal to that of male officers immediately subordinate to him. Unless this practice obtains, the work will be absorbed by men's units of the force, its meaning will be entirely lost to the community while the police and other government officials will remain uninformed of results and unable to estimate the value of the service.

Experience has emphasized the necessity of such a bureau being an integral unit having as close coordination with the central department plan of the police as that of the traffic and detective bureaus. Wherever separation for the good of the service seems advisable, it is an indictment of the local community whose responsibility lies in making possible the free development of clean, effective police service by both policemen and policewomen under the same administration.

The almost impassable gap which past prejudices have permitted to exist between the work of the police and all other preventive agencies must be

bridged if we sincerely desire in the future to make headway in the struggle against delinquency and crime. The trained policewoman can and is furnishing this connecting link. Through her speaking, as she does, both the social worker's language and that of the police, we can join the forces of the community and create through mutual understanding that close cooperation so necessary to the preservation of the social body. In this service the police are "the first line of defense." 1 Of all the agencies interested, they have the freest contacts with and easiest access to the people in the neighborhoods to which they are detailed, while this new inclination on their part towards social, preventive practice corresponds to that of the schools as expressed by the work of the visiting teacher.

To enumerate the value of socialized police service and its contribution to public welfare would require a review of modern preventive-protective social measures and their value to the community. No other social agency, nor all of them together, can make such a program generally effective without this most important group.

Every community will some day have accessible to all of us a "Clearing House," with experts for diagnosis and prognosis of individual cases and problems, where treatment will be prescribed and carried out for the purpose of adjusting the individual to normal society. Those professionally interested in such service will have the same basic 1 Commissioner Richard Enright.

training and the same definite aim,-the welfare of society through all necessary agencies including the police.

MINA C. VAN WINKLE,

President, International Association of Policewomen.
Director, Woman's Bureau, Metropolitan Police Dept.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

June, 1925.

INTRODUCTION

The preparation and publication of this volume was undertaken by the Bureau of Social Hygiene in response to a request made by persons interested in the women police movement, and more particularly in the training of suitable women for responsible positions in cities where women might be employed on the police force in numbers sufficient to warrant a Woman's Bureau.

The School of Social Work in New York City and George Washington University in Washington, D. C., were among the educational institutions offering courses for such training. Other institutions were considering introducing them.

All over the country, women's clubs and social service organizations, interested in preventive work, were asking where information could be had concerning the history and working methods of women police, preparatory possibly to the advocacy of women police in their own communities. Nowhere was there gathered together in one book the material they needed. It was necessary to direct students and inquirers to scattered articles in many papers and magazines.

The Bureau of Social Hygiene was aware that

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the employment of women on the police force of our cities is still in the experimental stage, despite the two decades that have elapsed since the birth of the movement. It knew that all the questions involved were still largely matters of controversy. It decided, however, that it could perform a real service in getting together what material was in existence concerning the history of the movement and presenting in an impartial way a picture of the working of women police in the more important cities where they are now employed.

To this was added a discussion of the functions of police with special reference to the possible contribution of women.

The Bureau had a precedent for this undertaking in Raymond B. Fosdick's two volumes, "European Police Systems" and "American Police Systems." The historical portion of the book here presented should be of permanent value. Other portions will need rewriting in the next five or ten years.

KATHARINE BEMENT DAVIS,

General Secretary, Bureau of Social Hygiene.

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