A FEMALE police officer on patrol in Orange today, fully kitted up with a revolver, handcuffs and capsicum spray, doesn’t rate a second glance but that hasn’t always been the case.
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One hundred years after the first women were admitted to the NSW Police it is a very different force, and a better one with their inclusion.
Like any state institution, it draws much of its authority from the extent to which it reflects the society it serves. In modern Australia a police force without women in its ranks could not claim to represent its community, just as a force without officers from Indigenous or ethnic backgrounds would be hopelessly disconnected.
From their first forays into the world of policing women have moved from administrative roles to front-line policing with all the challenges that brings.
Today female police occupy some of the most senior roles in the Canobolas Command but it is not that long ago they were a novelty in Orange.
This week the current crime manager, a female officer, met the first woman to be stationed in Orange, as recently as 1976, when governments were pushing the inclusion of women in the force.
Imagine prior to that year being a woman dealing with a sexual assault, domestic violence or the news of the traumatic death of a loved one. Extraordinarily difficult situations would have been made even more so.
Today women bring their perspective to the job of maintaining law and order, analysing crime and supporting the community in times of emergency and personal tragedy.
Like women in the armed forces or the corporate world they have skills which invariably improve the performance of a previously male dominated profession. And given that their place of work is out in the community the last thing we would want would be a force which did not reflect it.