FEMINIZATION OF THE POLICE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF COMPREHENSIVE RISK MINIMIZATION

Nowadays, the Police have a significant impact on the security and public order in Poland having actually become a litmus test of how the authorities approach the general public. Furthermore, Polish society is developing the characteristics of risk society and information society, which stimulates a special interest of citizens and the mass media in all the activities of uniformed institutions. Their attitude to current political events is often assessed and their effectiveness criticized. Therefore, the impact of contemporary modernization processes on the Police, including feminization, is a worthwhile task. For this purpose, extremely useful have been research methods, such as case studies, comparative analysis and system analysis.

expectations for minimizing threats that emerge in the unfavorable conditions of advanced globalization which we are being subjected to.
In the 2010s, we are witnessing a pronounced political action aimed at increasing the participation of women in social life, including professional life. Increasing the influence of the female part of society is something that should not be questioned. There are many areas of life that actually require a female perspective if we want to continue to create a new reality. For many decades, the positive effects of this attitude have been observed in political life, including on the Polish political scene, as exemplified by the fact that the Republic of Poland had a female Prime Minister twice in a row, and by the activity of the Women's Caucus in parliament. In the latter case, "the activities [of the Caucus] have increased the social approval of women in political roles" (Waniek, 2010: 31). Feminization in the area of security has already transformed "how we see war and conflict, how we study them, report them, theorize them, and observe them" (Sjolberg, 2014: 170-171). Unfortunately, in selected other areas of professional life, biological factors impose limitations that cannot be overcome without harm, e.g. lower operational efficiency or increased operating costs. In this regard, the public sector is worth examining, which remains sensitive to political expectations, becoming a veritable testing ground for new ideas. This dependence can be seen especially in the modernization process of uniformed services (including the police), which are forced to use parities on the one hand, but on the other are still required, or even obliged by society, to act effectively, regardless of conditions. These conditions, however, have fundamentally changed since the proportion of women in uniformed formations has been increasing, which has an impact on the societal aspect of security. It is emphasized that the prevalence of women in a particular profession, whether genuine or media-created, lowers its prestige. Due to the controversial nature of this statement, a more extensive quote explaining what its authors mean should be provided. "On the surface, this [women taking over various jobs] may seem a positive phenomenon, because it stimulates women to work in specific, feminized industries. On the other hand, however, it perpetuates the harmful stereotypes about job segregation. Feminization is taking place in those occupations that men have gradually given up because professional success is essential for their self-respect (this is due to another social stereotype, according to which the value of a man is manifested primarily in his being the head of the family and being able to provide for it). As a consequence, professions in which women prevail lose prestige in the eyes of the rest of society and become unattractive to men. Sometimes the feminization of a given industry occurs as a result of its gradual devaluation in the eyes of the opposite sex due to lower earnings or increased responsibilities, while the remuneration stays the same. The increased number of women employed in a given profession is therefore both the cause and the effect of its lowered prestige. Employers and society alike stereotypically perceive men as being more mobile and available, which makes it easier for men to acquire new qualifications and migrate to new or more attractive occupations. Professions which, as a result of this process, are relatively devalued with all its consequences (lowered salaries, bureaucratization) become gradually dominated by women, which continues to drive men out of this industry and further deprives the job of prestige. The professions of teacher, nurse or office clerk are good examples on the Polish labor market" (Feminizacja zawodów..., 2011). It is very likely, almost certain, that in societies that rely more on stereotypes, the same is observed in the uniformed services. After all, "social stereotypes are not only a generalization on the characteristics of members of a certain group, but are usually treated as the basis of attitudes and behavior towards them" (Miluska, 2011: 17).
It was probably at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries that one more key change occurred in the awareness of Polish society. The attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon marked a symbolic turning point when the world realized that not everybody was in favor of the New World Order. In the following years, Europeans discovered for themselves the transient nature of the "Kantian paradise" in the European Union, as they directly and indirectly experienced the attacks in Madrid, London, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Manchester and other, minor and more frequent terrorist attacks in Western Europe. This was when social interest in security or, more precisely, in all threats (genuine and potential) grew. To put it shortly, Polish society developed the characteristics of a risk society, where "in advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of risks. Accordingly, the problems and conflicts relating to distribution in a society of scarcity overlap with the problems and conflicts that arise from the production, definition and distribution of techno-scientifically produced risks" (Beck, 1994: 19). Furthermore, in societies driven by profit, consumption or hedonism, professional and private life has begun to focus on broadly understood information. Indeed, an advantage (profit) in both private and public sectors is achieved by those who have the most current data. In this way, Polish society has also become a classic example of an information society. A side effect in a society constructed in this way has been the gradual abolition of the monopoly on this much-desired information where the media have gradually become decentralized, as exemplified by new media, among other things. Information can be disseminated in the virtual world practically for free and without time or distance restrictions. With current advances in information technology, anyone can play the role of a journalist and report events on the spot to any community, regardless of boundaries. This organization of society has increased social awareness, which is formed without any control from the center (the authorities). Indeed, risk-savvy Europeans demand that all dangers be neutralized and believe that this is the responsibility of the public administration. Importantly, Poles also demand the same security standards as those applied in Western Europe and the United States.
The combination of these two phenomena (risk society and information society) gives rise to the need for comprehensive risk minimization, or the demand to search for potential and real threats in every area of life in order to identify and eliminate them. Societies have transferred this duty to the public administration to a degree bordering on pathology. Any event, even one that would have been considered the mistake of a specific member of society in the past, is now interpreted as neglect by the broadly understood public sector, along with other entities cooperating with it. Additionally, the mass media have totally adopted this attitude and, as a rule, have begun to interpret such cases in terms of public administration failures. Nothing sells better than bad news, which is important to the profit-driven media sector. Thus, all security-related entities have been closely scrutinized by the mass media, especially the police, mu-nicipal guards, health workers, etc. Due to their specific activity, the first of those have been facing quite a challenge (an increasing range of tasks imposed by society).
From the very beginning, the police in the Third Republic of Poland have been in a worse position, struggling with their past and especially with renouncing the dehumanization developed (and even promoted) during the communist period. Assessments of police activity have only improved in the 2010s, although there is still much to be improved (adjusted to meet the increasing requirements of Polish society). Since 2011, approval ratings for the Polish Police ranged between 57 and 75 per cent, reaching as high as 80 per cent in March 2020 (Table 1). It was then possible to achieve the approval levels of Western countries, such as Germany, Switzerland or Austria, while still remaining considerably behind Finland (over 90 per cent of trust among Finns). Incidentally, it is worth considering the impact of the COVID-19 threat on this result, including the initial public uncertainty (in February/March), and whether the sanitary and epidemiological restrictions applied in Poland would translate into the results of assessments of a police force which was monitoring citizens' compliance with the restrictions (and imposing penalties). The situation remains difficult, because the growth of social expectations is not commensurate with the abilities of the public sector, which is why it is not possible to comprehensively minimize risks. Importantly, there has been no standstill in the modernization processes in the Police. Changes are taking place not only as concerns the resources (personnel and means) and organization (procedures), but also mentality. For example, police management is increasingly aware that the way police officers intervene directly translates into their prestige (social evaluation). Currently, the next step in the humanization of the uniformed services, including the Police, is their feminization. According to some female activists, the presence of women in uniformed services should be considered a great civilizational change, something that was unimaginable in society until recently. Unfortunately, feminization is currently taking place in specific, often unfavorable circumstances and frequently generates unacceptable difficulties (Waśko-Owsiejczuk, 2018: 9). On the one hand, uniformed services are expected to be 100 per cent effective in neutralizing threats, and on the other, they are undergoing not fully thought-out feminization, which partially impairs their effectiveness.
As concerns the Police, this problem involves the exaggerated (politically enforced) involvement of women in areas unsuited to them. "It is emphasized that physical fitness determines the ability of a police officer to perform effectively. Police officers are obliged to intervene when necessary, and to detain, escort, convey, search, use coercive measures, incapacitate, use firearms, or stop vehicles. In such circumstances, a fast, strong and resilient police officer can face criminals more effectively than one with lower motor potential" (Bogdalski, 2015: 351). This dependence is reflected in Police Prevention Units (PPU), which are clearly oriented towards using force. Their task is to ensure safety and public order through regular patrols, pursuing dangerous criminals, and carrying out police actions and operations, which often comes down to neutralizing collective disturbances, for example during mass gatherings and events. Such public order activities by the police are closely watched and monitored by event participants, the mass media, the establishment and the public. This widespread interest stems from the social need for comprehensive risk minimization, which means demanding that specific institutions respond to each event as expected. Unfortunately, these expectations are vague and, what is worse, often contradictory, which results from sociological pluralism (uncontrolled rise of individual awareness). Every publicized case of police intervention triggers various reactions, ranging from indignation at the police's behavior, through justifying the operations of the patrol, to full acceptance of the measures of direct coercion applied. Every person approaches the preventive operations of uniformed services (preventing violations of legal norms) in a different way, and it is this diversity that makes it difficult, mainly for the police, but also for the municipal guards, to choose adequate solutions. As regards mass events, police interventions will always be widely commented upon, especially when they are not universally accepted by the public. In this case, there is no point in introducing the additional variable of sexual dimorphism into PPUs and diminishing their potential. It is not infrequent that physically weaker individuals make it more difficult to introduce order when dealing with crowds. This will always be undesirable in the police, due to its role in public life as determined by the legislator. In practice, this role reflects the relationship between the authorities and society, and the activity of the uniformed services can even be a litmus test for the functioning of the government itself.
Women can also be accused of being less available for work than men, which is partly true. Alongside being physically weaker, another limitation their employers face is pregnancies. After the Female Police was established in 1925, the possibility of getting pregnant limited the chances of joining the force. "Serving was considered a mission that required considerable sacrifices and dedication. Only unmarried women and widows could join the force. Force members were required to enjoy an immaculate reputation and be at least 1.64 m [ca. 5 ft. 4] tall. Age was another significant factor, as only candidates within the 25-45 age bracket could enroll. A future policewoman had to be at least a high school graduate. Joining the police, women pledged not to get married in the following ten years" (Kobiety w Policji..., 2020). At present, even though every pregnancy is more than welcome in an aging society, from the point of view of the uniformed services, it is a long-term limitation on female officers both in terms of their availability and training, promotion or maintaining their current specialization. It is feasible to quickly return to work, but caring for a child makes greater or lesser demands on professional life, especially when health problems arise. The public sector manages to cope with this, but private sector employers "are aware that women of reproductive age are likely to become pregnant and take a break from work for a while, which is why they prefer to employ men or skip over women when planning a promotion. Men are perceived by employers as universal workers, while women are seen as high-risk workers" (Haponiuk, 2014: 12). Especially in uniformed formations, women clearly have to face adversities that are often foreign to men. These are also products of the long-lasting traditional division of social roles, which cannot be changed by law. "It is still believed that the most important barrier limiting women's careers is the difficulty in reconciling two roles -an extremely absorbing professional role with the role of a wife and mother, and the stereotype of a woman as a person who finds selffulfillment more in private roles" (Basińska, Wiciak, 2015: 227).
Another example of less than responsible engagement of women are mixed patrols, formed without taking into account the specific types of potential interventions, the area, time of day or actors. After all, since the beginnings of the Police in the interwar period, Polish policewomen were trained to specialize in specific preventive tasks: "besides the intelligence service, preventive operations were increasingly developed, systematically organizing [female or mixed] patrols in locations where a threat to children, adolescents and women could possibly occur" (Paciorkowski, 2009: 33). After one hundred years, the traditional image of women and men continues to function and even prevail among Polish society. The perception of the female role is changing at an extremely slow rate, and that in terms of personality features rather than in economic and professional terms. Currently, the idea of the working woman has become so widespread that 72 per cent of women of working age were professionally active in 2018 (Table 2). The standard implemented in the interwar period should therefore be maintained today, because women serving in specific units are simply better. "Ladies handle criminal investigations well and are invaluable when it comes to dealing with rape victims or women who have fallen victims of violence. Female officers have quite often served in sections dealing with minors, although some police officers considered these to be 'second-rate' activities" (Dojwa, 2011: 174). It should be emphasized here that policewomen introduce something new to interventions involving women, both as victims and perpetrators. The trend observed in pre-war Poland is confirmed again: "in combating such phenomena as prostitution, juvenile delinquency, pimping, and human trafficking, trained policewomen achieve better results than their muscular colleagues" (Paciorkowski, 2009: 32). After all, Stanisława Paleolog, the first and only female officer in the Police of the Second Polish Republic, headed a health and morals brigade which mainly combated fornication and human trafficking (Kobiety w policji…, 2020).
Thus, the indiscriminate limiting of women's participation in the uniformed services does not increase the effectiveness of police activities. "During a break in the recruitment [of women], it was noticed that some social issues could be solved more effectively if women were involved in the work of police forces. The analysis of police operations in other European countries (mainly in Germany and the UK) showed that policewomen were better than policemen in working with victims of violence against women, primarily in the area of sexual crimes. Furthermore, they were more effective in combating juvenile crime. One of the outcomes of this analysis of the work of female officers in other European countries was, for example, the Slovenian police resuming the recruitment of women" (Lasota, 2016: 98-99).
Unfortunately, the prevalence of critical coverage, mainly audiovisual materials in new media, showing the negative consequences of the lower predispositions of women resulting from genetic determinants (sexual dimorphism), stigmatizes women in the police in general. This unfair assessment is further amplified by emotional and subjective media releases which perpetuate the stereotype that women are unfit for the uniformed services, which seems to be an exaggeration. This can be illustrated by the article published on August 25, 2013 in Gazeta Wrocławska under the meaningful title "There are too many women in the police. They get in the way, they are inept." It lists the key difficulties which are mentioned in unofficial conversations.
-"I am a police officer. I work in a line position, not in command. I would like to point out that while the intervention on the beach in Gdańsk was widely commented on, no one indicated that there was a policewoman there. This was ignored in every commentary, as everyone was afraid to say anything due to social pressure and for fear of being accused of discrimination. Yet more and more videos from interventions are published. One can browse the YouTube.pl website to get an idea of how many inept interventions by policewomen there are. This is unfortunately the truth." -"I encountered an unpleasant situation when I stopped a burglar who pounced on me. I was with a policewoman who did not help me in any way. Apart from a few bruises I suffered, we managed to stop the perpetrator because another patrol arrived. The policewoman stood and watched. Of course, the case was swept under the carpet, and the policewoman was transferred to conduct preparatory proceedings because no one wanted to go on patrol with her anymore." -"There are lots of such situations; I am not the only case. What they write on internet forums is sadly true. When there is a woman in a patrol, the police officer on duty sends another patrol even from the other end of the city for an intervention, because the perpetrator may be aggressive. And this patrol with the woman goes to badly parked vehicles, etc. Believe me, patrolling with a woman, every policeman avoids conducting interventions" (Kobiety w policji…, 2013). It is in this context that both the Police and the Supreme Audit Office (Najwyższa Izba Kontroli, NIK) insist on maintaining uniform assessments of physical fitness for women and men, which anti-discrimination associations oppose. Even though "3 per cent of men and as many as 40 per cent of women failed the physical fitness test, and women obtained weaker results than men in each age group, which resulted in lower scores" (Nabór, postępowanie..., 2013: 24-25). Additionally, the results of almost half of those women who do pass are up to 15 points lower than those of men on a 20-point scale. However, in the opinion of the NIK and the Police alike, the lack of gender differentiation, which is unfavorable for the candidates, should be maintained for the sake of the correct performance of tasks and the safety of police officers themselves. It is incomprehensible, however, that the physical fitness of candidates is tested differently than that of officers in service, including in prevention. In Regulation No. 418 of the Police Commander in Chief of April 15, 2011, the very same feature, namely the physical fitness of police officers (unlike that of candidates) may vary depending on sex and age (Zarządzenie, 2011, passim).
Despite the aforementioned physical limitations, policewomen successfully "pursue road pirates and dangerous criminals, patrol the streets, ensure the security of mass events, convey detainees, support victims of violence and work with young people" (Kobiety w policji..., 2020). This means that they operate in all types of services, from criminal, investigative, internal affairs, and preventive, through counter-terrorist, to services supporting the police in organizational, logistic and technical areas. Interestingly, there are many people willing to serve in the police (in 2019 there were 4 candidates for one place), but the candidates have to complete a difficult selection procedure. It consists of many stages, e.g. a knowledge test, a physical fitness test, a psychological test, an interview, determining the candidate's health and the degree of their fitness for service, and checking the correctness of data in records, registers and files. As a result, a significant portion fails to score a sufficient number of points.
In 2019, only one in five candidates was admitted. Despite this demanding verification, in 2019 the number of admissions exceeded the planned number of 4,500 by 155. For years, however, the Polish Police have been struggling with personnel shortages; there are approximately several thousand vacancies each year (Table 3). Given around 100,000 full-time employees, the shortage amounts to only a couple of per cent, but it remains noticeable nevertheless.
Interestingly, before World War II, women accounted for 0.5 per cent of employees of the State Police. At present, this rate is ca. 20 per cent (95 lat kobiet w Polskiej Policji, 2020). There are several hundred women in positions of command, and over ten thousand of them in the formation as a whole. In the history of the Police, there have been two female generals so far. The first, Chief Inspector Irena Doroszkiewicz (in service 1990-2016) served, among others, as the Regional Police Commander in Opole. The second lady general is Chief Inspector Helena Michalak (in service 1996-2020) -Regional Police Commander in Gorzów Wlkp., who served as the Deputy Police Commander-in-Chief (Kobieca twarz Policji, 2019). It is worth reminding the criteria for admitting women to the police in pre-war Poland. Only unmarried women or childless widows aged 25 to 45 could serve as policewomen. The candidates were required to enjoy an impeccable reputation, and obligatorily present a reference from a women's organization. When policewomen got married, they had to leave the service (2020 rok -jubileusz służby kobiet w Policji, 2019). We can clearly see how much has changed over one hundred years in the approach to women in uniformed services.

***
Currently, the uniformed services, and even the public administration as a whole, are becoming humanized through feminization. Unfortunately, in developed societies, this process is becoming a sensitive matter, because such a significant modernization impacts efficiency in the area of comprehensive risk minimization. Members of society have become accustomed to the "Kantian paradise" and demand almost total security; and every failure of the uniformed services, inspection services, or municipal guards (public administration in general) is highlighted. Therefore, security-related entities arouse the constant interest of the public, especially the mass media, which, combined with ongoing globalization (cost-free information transfer) in a risk society (public opinion focused on new risks) and in an information society (uncontrolled increase in awareness), all pose quite a challenge for these institutions. In an environment so organized, any difficulties, including errors, will always be exaggerated to arouse public opinion (in order to gain political and financial capital), which leads to speculation and misunderstandings. The problem is becoming politicized, which facilitates the radicalization of supporters and opponents of feminization. The most important task today is to oppose this dichotomy in Polish society, a dichotomy which is gradually becoming consolidated. This task can be accomplished mainly by skillfully neutralizing the ideological radicalism of each side, which requires, first and foremost, curbing the thoughtless implementation of the assumptions of feminization. Otherwise, depending on the ruling political option, the implementations could become excessive or be abandoned altogether. Either scenario will be detrimental to the public sector, and this will translate into the quality of life of Polish society. An unnatural prevalence of women in a given profession "is unfavorable not only for employees of both sexes, but also for their environment. An example may be the strongly feminized teaching profession: in the research on teacher authority carried out by Małgorzata Bednarska, the majority of junior high school students stated that the presence of men in schools would improve the atmosphere and introduce the necessary variety" (Feminizacja zawodów..., 2011). It should be emphasized once again that in the present reality, feminization has actually become an obligation, because it is something new. However, it cannot be implemented under ideological coercion, which is clearly visible, for example, in the context of the uniformed services. Currently, this is leading to unnecessary disputes, aversion and social division. Therefore, it is worth giving thought to exaggerated activity (especially legislative activity) promoting broadly understood equality in the name of political correctness, because the consequences of this modernization will be experienced by everyone and affect the most sensitive area of life -security.