A Look at Women Police Writers

March is Women’s History Month. Nearly 600 state and local police officers in the Untied States have written books. And, twenty-one of those police officers are women. Like their male counterparts, they have written fiction, autobiographies, academic texts and even poetry. Interestingly enough, the most successful writer of romantic fiction is a retired male motorcop. Put the motorcop aside for the moment and let’s take a brief tour of the history of women police officers as writers.

Women in Policing

There is some disagreement about who should be thought of as the first women police officer in the United States. In 1910, Alice Stebbin Wells joined the Los Angeles Police Department and was the first woman to be called a “Policewoman.” However, in 1905, Lola Baldwin was hired by Portland Police Department (Oregon), given somewhat limited police powers and put in charge of group of social workers.
It has been said that Baldwin was the first woman to have sworn authority. Still earlier, in 1893, Mary Owens was given the rank of Policeman in the Chicago Police Department. While Owens worked in the department 30 years, she had been given this title and job as the widow of a slain officer. At that time in our history, lacking today’s survivor benefits, some organizations took care of the police family by providing widows with jobs within the department.

READ ON

http://www.police-writers.com/look_women_police_writers.html