A Clear Voice: Police Training NOT Equal for Men and Women

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March 14, 2005

Police Training NOT Equal for Men and Women

I was watching La Shawn Barber on MSNBC this afternoon talking about the subject of female police officers. There was an official from the New York Police there who kept repeating that female officers had to go through the same training as male officers.

I decided to look into that a little more carefully. After some web searching, it appears that potential police officers in the state of New York must pass physical tests whose limits are defined by the New York State Municipal Police Training Council. So far, I haven’t been able to find a direct source for these requirements, but on a website for Suffolk County, they have their requirements. (They are at the very end of the page.) I was not surprised to see that the requirements are different for male and female officers. For instance, males 20-29 are required to run a 12:51 minute mile, whereas females are required to run a 15:26 mile.

While looking around, I also came across a reference to a case, Pietras v. Board of Fire Commissioners that seems to bear on this situation. The New York Law Journal is quoted as saying:

"Until Judge Hurley's ruling in 1998, the Farmingville Fire District required that all probationary volunteer firefighters pass a physical agility test that included dragging a 280-pound water-filled fire hose over a distance of 150 feet in under four minutes.
"The four-minute maximum for the so-called "charged hose drag" was determined by trials conducted by some 44 members of the volunteer department, including Ms. Pietras, who logged a time of five minutes, 21 seconds.

"When the official test was given, 63 of 66 male probationers passed the test, for a passage rate of 95 percent. Of the seven women who took the test, four dragged the hose in under four minutes and two failed to complete the test. The seventh was Ms. Pietras, who failed the test not once but twice. She was subsequently fired from the department.

"During a bench trial before Judge Hurley, an expert exercise physiologist, Dr. Robert Otto, testified as to both the disparate impact of the "charged hose drag" test and its lack of relation to the job.

"Under the rule, if the pass rate for women is less than 80 percent of the pass rate for men, then the court can draw an inference of disparate impact."

I'm sure this case applies to the police as well. Thus it seems that political correctness, rather than safety and realism, are setting requirements for females working in the public safety domain in New York.

If a woman is actually able to pass the same physical tests as a man does, then I have no problem with them becoming police officers or firemen. (Firepeople just sounds stupid.) However, there's no reason to put the public or the women in question in harm's way simply so we can be "fair."

Update: I've found the actual state wide standards here. They are slightly different from the Suffolk County ones, but the disparity between male and female requirements is pretty much the same.

Update: After watching the video, I see that the woman was First Department Chief Jewel Williams from the Department of Public Safety, New York State Courts. Thanks to Political Teen for making the video avaliable.

Posted by illuminaria at March 14, 2005 04:29 PM

Comments

Assuming that having policepeople in decent physical condition is a positive (I do), then the running requirements seem pretty weak to downright useless. A 12:51 mile (~4 2/3 miles per hour) is not much more than a brisk walk, especially if you are doing only one mile. The women's time (15:26/mile) breaks down to about 3.9 miles per hour for only one mile. For twenty somethings this isn't a fitness test worthy of policepersons, it is more like a test of being able to get off the couch.

Posted by: Mike McKeown at March 16, 2005 07:58 AM

I seem to remember a 60 Minutes feature quite a few years ago on the attempts of the San Francisco Fire Department (I think) to come up with a single set of physical standards applicable to both men and women. Every set of standards they could come up with that excluded manifestly unfit men also excluded the overwhelming preponderance of women.

The issue appears to be whether you believe that putting out fires or women firefighters are the higher social priority.

Great blog by the way. And Gene Expresssions sent me.

Posted by: Dave Schuler at March 16, 2005 09:46 AM

You could call them fire fighters, as in the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The trick is ensuring that you are testing for genuine job-related skills, and applying the same tests to people in the job (to make sure they can still meet the standard) as to people applying for the job.

Posted by: Kai Jones at March 16, 2005 11:52 AM

Mike: It depends.

Are the tests age-adjusted like, for example, the Army Physical Fitness Test is (with different standards for a 20-year-old than a 40-year-old)? If not, you might have an argument.

However, keep in mind that this test has to be taken and retaken by personnel on a regular basis, regardless of age.

It has to be passable both by 20-something recruits and 40-something sergeants. Both would be on the streets.

I'm not sure, under those conditions, you can CREATE a fair test.

So you create a test that reflects the general conditioning needed for the job. Which must account for the harshest conditions which a testee might encounter on the job.

IMHO...I care more "can this person do the job?" than "are they male or female?" (unless they're doing a cavity or strip search of me or something. I don't like the idea of someone potentially getting off on searching me, OK?)

If the necessary physical conditions mean that women are less likely to be firefighters or cops, I can accept that if that means I get more qualified firefighters or cops.

Posted by: Penta at March 16, 2005 11:58 AM

Hey, women can do any job that a man can do.
They might have to improvise some, or go and get some help, but they can do the job.

Some people have suggested that since women police officers may more often be overpowered and have their weapons taken away, that this somehow reflects badly on female police officers. That's hogwash. If the gun of a female police officer is taken and used in a crime, then the police officer (or her family if she dies in the incident) should sue the police department for providing insufficient protection for her. It's just common sense.

Gloria Allred led the fight for the double standards for female firefighters and good for her! Fire departments are better off for the diversity. I think that any reasonable person would say that the men on the squad should be willing to work twice as hard in order to have females working with them. They'd better be.

Feminists have been very patient so far, but if these insinuations and complaints continue then it may be time for some hardball. We're still working on the exact rules that would make hardball fair for the women on the team.

Posted by: PC Rules at March 16, 2005 05:09 PM

[Quote] Gloria Allred led the fight for the double standards for female firefighters and good for her! Fire departments are better off for the diversity. I think that any reasonable person would say that the men on the squad should be willing to work twice as hard in order to have females working with them. They'd better be. [etouQ]

That's a load of hogwash PC Rules. Anything that increases risk of death and injury to either the public these people are sworn to protect, or to these highly trained persons (at very great expense to the taxpaying citizens, et al.) with families and such who depend on them and love them is pure rubbish. Anyone whose political agenda is more important than human lives deserves to have their membership card revoked. The only thing that this has done is a) caused a major headache and hassle, and expense to the firehouses where these people live and work by forcing them to make changes to allow for persons of different genders to exist and cohabitate under one roof, while still trying to function as a unit. b) Endangered lives and property, and c) forced these departments to hire more men to cover those women (or scrawny guys) who aren't pulling their share of the load.

This is not about gender you feminist idiot. It's about doing a job, and doing it right. By the way, I am offended by your referring to Gloria Allred, and quite probably yourself as 'Feminists'. It is a misnomer. You hate femininity. A true 'feminist' is one who works for the betterment of women, not one who tries to turn a woman into a sort-of-man with no feminine features or qualities... And they are indeed qualities.

As to feminists being patient so far... What planet in our solar system have you been living on for the past 40 years? These aren't complaints you freak, they are simply FACTS. The recent hype that led Illuminaria to post on this topic was created by FACTUAL EVERYDAY OCCURANCES, which would have been different if these female officers and such had the brute strength and mass required of male officers in the same position. They are not insinuations, they are ACCUSATIONS. Nobody's hiding behind insinuations and innuendo! We're right out in full voice saying that the choice to employ that officer in that position in the recent courtroom shootout was what got a bunch more people killed.

It's morons like you with your inability to grasp basic reality that are getting people killed, and ruining lives.

I believe you will one day be held accountable, and be made to pay dearly for this, and it comforts me.

Posted by: Thistledowne at March 18, 2005 08:05 PM

Illuminaria just informed me (after I stopped screaming, and my bloodshot eyes returned to my eye sockets, and we swept up all the hair I yanked out off the floor, and went to a nice supper at Red Lobster), that PC Rules might, just might have been posting tongue-in-cheek. I've made an idiot of myself once again because libs (and stupidity) get me very hot under the collar. This is why Illuminaria has the blog and I have well... My bagpiping band site and nothing that's likely to cause discussion and debate.

Illuminaria has a really sexy brain... And the rest of her is no slouch either.

//Thistledowne.

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