Police Matrons
More difficult than the opening of probation work to women has been the no less obvious task of installing a sufficient number of police matrons. An examination of the records shows that these important officers have been established through the efforts of women in all large western cities and also extensively through the East. The Women’s Prison Association of New York is seeking to secure police matrons in all the stations instead of having women dragged about to different stations to find them. This association was instrumental in getting patrol wagons, moreover, so that women might not be taken through the streets by policemen.
Boston has a street matron, Mrs. Thomas Tyler, an officer employed by the Florence Crittenton Mission, who goes about at night wherever girls are found in streets, parks, theaters, and cafés and gives help to them where it is needed. The shelter of the Mission is a valuable aid to her in her work. Mrs. Tyler is a private policewoman supplementing, not supplanting, other agencies that work with girls.
The employment of women physicians in courts for women is a necessity strongly urged by women’s probation and other associations. In some courts they are already serving in that capacity.