My missus is a Merseyside bobby and she gets stuck in more than some of her male colleagues. She and many others are good at the job. Same for frontline; there are many Richards who I would replace with one of the girls
That is the good news. Down here in Melbourne it is different, largely due to the efforts of one Christine Nixon, who, when Chief of Police in Victoria insisted on very high degrees of gender and race 'equality', large numbers of women of varying race were recruited and fit, able men turned away. A seasoned sergeant I spoke to was very unhappy, as he pointed out, he would spend more time, on a Saturday night, trying to protect his patrol partner, the 5' nothing girl, of Indian extraction, from drunken mobs than he should rightfully have spent trying to restore law and order. Not unnaturally he wanted a fit and able man of equal size to himself to be able to physically tackle the trouble makers whereas his position was totally compromised by the inappropriate gender and race bias of Christine Nixon.