July 2001 Volume 82 Number 7
"serving the protectors"
| July 2001 Volume 82 Number 7 "serving the protectors" |
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Sunday Mail journalist Shane Maguire, recently wrote an article headlined, “Are women cops coping?” (June 3, 2001), and speculated about whether female officers were as good as males.
This was a question, he alleged, which “many are asking”.
To substantiate his claim, he alluded to “some sections of the police, political and legal community” who were supposedly questioning policewomen’s suitability for frontline duties.
So exactly how many individuals was Maguire able to identify as being disenchanted with the performance of female officers?
In fact, Maguire in his entire article could quote only one - a “senior officer with nearly 30 years on the force... who asked not to be named”.
On this flimsy pretext Maguire based his headline.
How much credence can we put on one disaffected person who does not wish to be identified? And how, by the wildest stretch of imagination, can a solitary, anonymous comment constitute “sections” of the community?
It is bad enough that Maguire implies that there is widespread dissatisfaction with female police officers (together with a predictable cheap shot at political correctness). But more than that, Maguire got his facts wrong.
For “evidence” of women’s supposed inability to cope with frontline roles, Maguire brandished some workers compensation statistics which recorded the number of male and female officers who claimed compensation for work-related injuries over a three-year period up to 1998.
Maguire interpreted the figure of 268 injured females as raising doubts about policewomen’s fitness for frontline roles.
In fact, the very reverse is true. Maguire neglected to mention that the proportion of female injuries is lower than their numbers in the police would suggest.
Explained properly, it is a good figure. It suggests that female officers are well able to look after themselves.
Maguire, then, has failed utterly to substantiate his allegations that “many” are questioning policewomen’s role in the frontline fight against crime.. But more than that, in his interpretation of workers compensation statistics, he is just plain wrong.
For those of us who attended the luncheon to honour Police Prosecution’s former Superintendent Hank Ramm on May 18 (featured in Homage to Hank Ramm), the turn-out was nothing less than astonishing.
This was especially so as the occasion was not to celebrate his retirement but only his transfer to a new position in SAPOL.
But most remarkable of all was not just the number, but the range of people who came to pay sincere tributes to one of the Police Department’s most popular officers.
The courts’ most senior law officers attended to salute Hank Ramm and laud his services to Police Prosecutions.
It is certainly not every day that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Chief Magistrate would attend a function to celebrate the transfer of anyone.
The attendance of so many at Ramm’s luncheon was a tribute to his outstanding character, which won respect across the police force and legal profession.
Not only does Ramm embody integrity and straightforwardness in the best policing tradition, but - as so many people testified at the luncheon in his honour - he has been an exemplary commissioned officer who has been approachable and tenaciously loyal to his staff.
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