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Professor Mangai Natarajan Receives International Award for Excellence in Research on Improving Policing for Women

Professor Mangai Natarajan in the Department of Criminal Justice was the recipient of the Excellence in Policing Award sponsored by the Australasian Council of Women and Policing. She received the award at the 15th Annual Excellence in Policing Awards presentation dinner held as part of the 8 Australasian Women and Policing conference Making it Happen: Making it Last in Adelaide, Australia on Tuesday, August 27, 2013.

“Receiving this award was a great honor for me as a woman and a scholar who strives to improve the status of women in policing and women in developing economies, especially India,” said Professor Natarajan.

The Australasian Council of Women and Policing is a world renowned association for women police in the world. It aims to improve policing for women by making policing organizations more appealing, recognizing employers of women, and ensuring that policing services that they provide meet the needs of women in the community.

According to the ACWAP, the award recognizes Professor Natarajan’s twenty five years of research on women in policing and the resultant peer-reviewed publications.

“Professor Natarajan has been a creative researcher and a passionate advocate for women in policing.  Her work is path breaking and practical, and widely acclaimed.  She is at the peak of her creative capacity, and her legacy in this field will be enduring,” said the ACWAP.

Dr. Natarajan originally became interested in this work while conducting research for her doctorate from Rutgers University in 1991 in which she compared the work and ambitions of women officers in India and the United States. She compiled the findings of her many studies in a book titled Women Police in a Changing Society: Back Door to Equality (Ashgate Publishing, 2008).  This is the first book to offer a detailed empirical account of the development of women police in a non-Western culture.