Women in Policing and the Response to Rape: Representative Bureaucracy and Organizational Change

• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1557085117753668
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085117753668

Feminist Criminology

2018, Vol. 13(3) 237 –259

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085117753668

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Article

Women in Policing and

the Response to Rape:

Representative Bureaucracy

and Organizational Change

Amie M. Schuck1

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the theory of representative bureaucracy.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal data, covering a period from 1997 to 2013, suggest

that a greater number of women in the policing workforce is related to higher reporting

rates for rape incidents and higher clearance rates for rape cases. Furthermore, the

findings suggest that the relationship between female representation and women-

centered outcomes is moderated by the presence of a union and mediated by

resources for victims and community policing. Looking ahead, more research is

needed to identify how female representation in policing influences organizational

processes and outcomes for citizens.

Keywords

policing, rape, quantitative research, sexual assault, women, women as professionals

in the CJS, longitudinal study, women and social policy

A major concern for the administration of justice is the extent to which criminal justice

organizations adhere to the principles valued by people in liberal democracies.

Employees in justice-focused organizations have a tremendous amount of power and

are prodigiously involved in the introduction, design, and enforcement of officially

sanctioned policies on behalf of the state. These agents of formal social control exer-

cise discretion regarding which policies should be enforced and who should be pun-

ished. Because of a lack of transparency and electoral accountability, the amount of

power wielded by street-level bureaucrats sometimes results in a conflict between

1University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Corresponding Author:

Amie M. Schuck, Department of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago,

1007 West Halsted Street MC141, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.

Email: amms@uic.edu

753668FCXXXX10.1177/1557085117753668Feminist CriminologySchuck

research-article2018

238 Feminist Criminology 13(3)

those who lead and manage justice-focused organizations and the people whom such

agencies have been designed to serve.

Increasing female representation has been identified as one possible strategy for

creating justice-focused organizations that are more responsive to public needs

(President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015; Silvestri, 2015). Historically,

the occupation of policing has been dominated by White men, and although female

representation in the United States has increased to approximately 12% (United States

Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016), most law enforcement

departments remain highly gendered organizations in which stereotypes about men

and women drive norms and practices in the agency (Shelley, Morabito, & Tobin-

Gurley, 2011). Drawing from the theory of representative bureaucracy, scholars argue

that sociodemographic representation consistent with the characteristics of the con-

stituency helps ensure that all citizens’ interests are represented in the formulation and

implementation of public policy (Coleman-Selden, 1998; Oberfield, 2014). In addi-

tion, representation is hypothesized to strengthen citizens’ participation in the deci-

sion-making process and to increase their cooperation in interactions with specific

bureaucratic agents (Riccucci, Van Ryzin, & Lavena, 2014).

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of female representation in law

enforcement on the reporting of rape incidents and the clearing of rape cases in the

United States. Police officers are some of the most important street-level bureaucrats

in the processing of sexual violence crimes. Officers function as the gatekeepers of the

justice system (Frazier & Haney, 1996) and exercise a significant amount of discretion

when deciding which cases are worthy of further review and how much organizational

capital should be devoted to the investigation. Some evidence indicates that agencies

with a greater number of female officers are more effective in identifying and clearing

sexual violence cases compared with agencies with fewer female officers (Meier &

Nicholson-Crotty, 2006; Walfield, 2016). However, research on the topic is limited,

and other scholars have not found support for the representative bureaucracy hypoth-

esis (Morabito, Pattavina, & Williams, 2017).

The Theory of Representative Bureaucracy

According to Mosher (1968), passive representation is defined as the extent to which

bureaucratic organizations diversify their workforce by employing individuals from a

variety of sociodemographic backgrounds. In theory, for an organization to be truly

representative, the diversity of the people whom it serves must be adequately repro-

duced in its personnel structure. Passive representation can be interpreted as an indica-

tor of society’s “commitment to equal opportunity and access to power and can

promote legitimacy of public bureaucracies” (Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006,

p. 851). Although passive representation is largely symbolic, it is hypothesized to be

associated with a citizenry that is more receptive to the bureaucracy because citizens

feel connected to the organization and involved in the process of developing policies

that affect the public (Riccucci et al., 2014).