Women Police in a Changing Society

Offering a fascinating account of the development of women police over the past twenty years, this book draws on the author's extended research in India to examine how the Indian experience offers a valuable alternative to the Anglo-American model; not only for traditional societies but for women police in the West as well.Drawing on the establishment in 1993 of all-women units in Tamil Nadu, this unique experiment proved highly successful in enhancing the confidence and professionalism of women officers and ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the police.At a time when policing is being rethought all over the world, not only in traditional societies, the Tamil Nadu experience offers important lessons for western countries that are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain women officers.Natarajan's book is an important and original contribution to the literature on gendered policing, which to date has concentrated almost exclusively on the US and British experience.