Playing with Numbers: a Discussion Paper on Positive
Discrimination as a Means for Achieving Gender
Equality in the Police Service in England and Wales
by
Jennifer Brown, Peter Hegarty
and Darragh O’Neill
Department of Psychology
School of Human Sciences
University of Surrey
May 2006
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted on behalf of and funded by the British Association for
Women in Policing. Our thanks go to Julie Spence the President of the BAWP and Chief
Constable of Cambridgeshire Police. To all those who gave their time in talking to us, we
thank you, especially Sir Ronnie Flannigan, Maura Muldoon and Irwin Montgomery.
Jayne Monkhouse provided an opinion on the legal technicalities of Equality Legislation.
We hope that the report may contribute to the debate about the effectiveness of strategies
to increase the representation of women in policing.
Summary
This paper discusses the rationale for increasing the numbers of women in the Police Service and the means
for achieving this goal.
Increasing the representation of ethnic minorities in the Police Service is made on the grounds of reclaiming
police legitimacy in that the current composition overly represents white (male) officers. This then is held to
violate the principle of policing by consent because such a composition is not consistent with the diversity of
the policed communities. As this holds true for ethnic minorities, it is hard to refute the claims of women to
redress their current under representation. Thirty five percent women has been suggested to be a viable
aspiration for the gender composition of the police and the notion of critical mass is explored to justify this.
At present UK law permits the use of special measures to encourage increasing the applicant pool but
appointments may not violate the merit principle whereby the best candidates are chosen irrespective of other
considerations. The setting of targets is also permissible and has been done for the recruitment of BME
officers although not for women.
The combination of special measures and targets is unlikely to be successful in the case of BME. Given the
current recruitment rate and taking into account the 26% attrition in probationers’ wastage rates, a
conservative estimate calculates it will take 23 years to achieve the 7% BME representation.
If a critical mass of 35% women in policing is to be achieved then again at current rates of recruitment and
wastage rates it will take 15 years to reach this percentage.
If police legitimacy is to be recovered, then these lead times suggest the slow pace may further jeopardise
police reputation and mandate to police by consent. Academic opinion is reviewed and the evidence
indicates that within the current legal provision this lead time will not be improved. Radical departures from
the legislation are discussed in which the strict application of the merit principle is breached in favour of the
public good. The case of Northern Ireland is described whereby derogation from European legislation
permitted the introduction of the 50:50 policy. This has permitted the PSNI to move from 8 to 19% Catholic
representation in 5 years. However, the reformation of the RUC was not conducted through numbers alone
and the context for the 50:50 as a special case for Northern Ireland as well as the other reforming measures
adopted are outlined.
The report discusses the arguments for and against the introduction of positive discrimination.
The Patten Report provides a set of criteria to evaluate success in the case of policing Northern Ireland.
These are used to assess the successes of the PSNI thus far. They are also applied to the present case. Will a
positive discrimination policy with respect to gender
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promote efficient and effective policing?
deliver fair and impartial policing?
provide accountability in law and to the community?
make police more representative of society?
protect and vindicate human rights and human dignity of all?
Conclusions
The British Crime Survey data indicates a declining trend in user satisfaction with police. More specifically
work undertaken for the Women’s National Commission and research conducted on behalf of the
Metropolitan Police Service indicated areas of dissatisfaction in policing services by women. One solution
has been to suggest greater numbers of women officers. For example the Patten Report is “convinced that a
much higher proportion of female officers would enhance the effectiveness of policing.”
The argument for 35% as an aspiration for the gender composition for the Police Service in England and
Wales is made on the grounds that this proportion represents a sufficient critical mass to obviate the negative
behaviour of the majority and potentiates women friendly policies. There is support for the former but not
the latter. Research evidence suggests 35 is an optimum percentage where women experience the least
discrimination and greatest level of acceptance by male officers in the police.. As applied to the Legislature,
research finds that it not necessarily the case that more women friendly policies are initiated and enacted and
points to additional constraints such as dispersion of women at sufficiently senior level that inhibits the
hoped for outcomes of this level of representation.
Thus the case for 35% representation of women is equivocal.
Present UK legislative arrangements do identify lawful measures that may be applied to encourage increases
in the recruitment pool. It is suggested that these lawful measures have not been exhausted or used
sufficiently imaginatively at this stage to warrant changing the law to rescind application of the merit
principle as a means to increase in the representation of women. However, with current policies and
recruitment rates there will not be a dramatic rise in the number of women officers in the immediate future.
The PSNI represents a special case where there were deep and profound tragedies from the past which had
resulted in entrenched disproportionalities on the basis of religion creating a departure from a desirable
model of policing in a democracy society. This necessitated a suspension of the strict application of the
merit principle to achieve a greater public good. This justified a derogation from European Law to permit the
50:50 recruitment policy to increase the numbers of Catholic officers. The 50:50 was one amongst a raft of
reforming measures, and a great deal of financial resources underpinned these changes.
It remains to be argued that the particularities of the Northern Ireland case pertain to England and Wales
and can be applied to the gender representation in the police to justify a change in the law.
In any event it is obvious that numbers alone will not reform the police. The Patten recommendations argued
for structural, symbolic and cultural changes as a reformulation of the RUC and the recruitment policy was
one of a raft of measures.
When applying the Patten criteria to PSNI there is no doubt the 50:50 has moved the force nearer to the
religious proportionalities reflected in the population of Northern Ireland. It is probably too soon, but
measures of user satisfaction and police performance have not yet demonstrated delivery of the improved
community accountabilities or efficiencies in performance.
When applying the criteria to gender (and ethnic representation within England and Wales) we found that
the relative proportion of women (and BME) officers in forces makes no difference to the performance thus
indicating no loss (or gains) in proficiency with greater numbers of women (or ethnic minorities). Neither
were there any differences in fairness as measured by the disproportionalities in stop and search. With
respect to community accountability as measured by customer satisfaction, again there was no statistically
significant relationship between levels of satisfaction and the proportion of women (or BME) officers in
forces. Finally at current levels of recruitment and attrition of probationer constables, BME recruitment will
hit 7% in 2023 and a proportion of 35% women officers will be achieved by 2021. This rate of increase is
likely to be imperceptible given these lead times so will not achieve a public sense of a more representative
Police Service.
For the composition of the police to change, the necessary conditions for reforming policies to work must
include
 sufficient finances to undercut the costs of change;
 maintenances of competency standards;
 communication and acceptance of minimalist application of the merit principle;
 authentic commitment of senior management;
 concomitant culture change within the organisation and across the CJS;
 a wider societal project to elimination disadvantage.