Though women changed their police role throughout history, sexual harassment and gender-bias is still evident in this male-dominated field. Cara Rabe-Hemp shows that despite the struggles that women face in the “all-boys club” of policing, not only do women survive but they thrive in this almost exclusively male occupation.

Rabe-Hemp (Illinois State University) uses women’s firsthand accounts, media stories, and academic research to present the experiences of women in the US police force in the 1980s, 1990s, and present day. She weaves together the structural forms of inequality that women face in a nontraditional occupation—harassment, gatekeeping for sex segregation, barriers to advancement, etc. along with the cultural stereotypes of gender and motherhood that serve as barriers for women in police work. Rabe-Hemp explores how the field of police work has changed over the decades and how gendered conceptions impacted and were impacted by those changes. Importantly, the author contributes to academic discussions of the social construction of gender at work and how those conceptions trace back to some of the earliest examples of women in police work. Written in an accessible format, Roth-Hemp’s book blends an academic analysis of a highly gendered occupation with concrete advice and recommendations for women and men in police work. Summing Up: Recommended. General collections, lower-division undergraduates, and professionals.

"Rabe-Hemp, a professor of criminal justice at Illinois State University, takes a historical foray into the chronicles of women in policing. This fascinating read from the author of Does Gender Matter? The Effect of Gender in Police-Citizen Interactions (2009), vividly illustrates women’s struggles to participate in the male-dominated field of law enforcement. Since the early twentieth century, women have fought to overcome gender stereotypes, prove their physicality, and not be pigeonholed in their quest to be taken seriously as peace officers. However, after decades of legal battles and public-relations challenges, for many in the field the issue can still be boiled down to one basic question: In a dire moment, where brute strength is needed, is the average woman equal to the task? And the pervasive view that assumes the collective “she” is not has proven difficult for even the most dedicated female advocates to overcome. Filled with personal stories and thorough research, and gifted with the author’s insightful eye into this nuanced world, Rabe-Hemp’s tome helps unravel the frustrating puzzle women police officers face." — Glendy X. Mattalia (1/12)

Thriving in an All-Boys Club is one of very few books about women in law enforcement that traces how women entered the field and describes the progress they have made to the present. While the overall message is a positive one, Cara Rabe-Hemp does not shrink from raising important issues that remain unresolved.

Cara Rabe-Hemp’s book about women in law enforcement is a must-read for educators, supervisors and command staff in law enforcement agencies, women considering policing as a career and anyone who wants a better understanding of the culture of police agencies. She does a great job of looking at issues women police faced in each decade. Having lived through many of those decades from the 1960’s through the 1980’s as a sworn officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and chief in a large agency, I can attest to the accuracy of her portrayal. I also worked in the 1990’s and 2000’s as the Director Of the National Center for Women and Policing where we tackled these issues on a nationwide basis. It is my belief that until we greatly increase the numbers of women at all levels in law enforcement, we will not make major progress on improving the work environment for women; nor will we solve the problems of community unrest and distrust of the police.

This well researched history of women in law enforcement is, at its core, a deeply American story. Women against the odds and suffering outright discrimination worked tirelessly to break into and then excel in American law enforcement. The personal stories weave a fabric of what is the best of these pioneering women and the profession they helped shape and improve.

Cara Rabe-Hemp, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Criminal Sciences at Illinois State University. Rabe-Hemp is dedicated to increasing the participation of women interested in careers in CJS and co-sponsored the creation of Breaking Barriers, which was awarded the University’s Diversity Advocacy Award in 2010. Throughout her professional career she has examined how gender affects officers’ opportunities and experiences in the field of policing. She has been actively engaged with organizations which support women in law enforcement agencies, including the National Association of Women Executives in Law Enforcement, the National Association of Women and Police, and the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive Institute’s Conference on Women in Criminal Justice. Rabe-Hemp has published extensively in the area of women in law enforcement, with work appearing the top criminology/criminal justice journals, including Police Quarterly, Feminist Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management. In 2010, Cara was awarded the University Research Initiative Award, in 2014, she was inducted into the College of Applied Sciences and Technology Academy of Achievement, and in 2016 she was awarded the College of Applied Sciences and Technology Outstanding Researcher Award. In 2013, she was one of six women invited to a panel to discuss, “Contemporary Issues in Policing Research” at the American Society of Criminology Meeting.