Women first joined the Netherlands police service in 1911 and until 1953 they were very few in number and their duties were confined to working in the juvenile section. In 1953, women were admitted to the uniformed branch, but still had limited responsibilities, specifically traffic and juvenile sections. The early 1970s saw a substantial rise in the number of women entering the service, this corresponding with a shortage of male recruits. In the 1980s, the formal Emancipation Policy for the police service was introduced to reduce the degree of quantitative and qualitative disadvantage of women within the service. However, the most radical and challenging steps to improve the status of women in policing occurred in 1985 with the target being set for the representation of women to be 25 percent by 1995. By 1989, while the proportion of women in the municipal police had risen to 7.2 percent, in the State police it had fallen to 5.3 percent. It appears that the action of the Dutch government did not address the underlying difficulties of increasing the number of women on the police force, namely that the police service is still seen as a white male preserve. Thus, unless the views and attitudes of serving officers are changed such policies cannot succeed. 1 note and 1 table (Author abstract modified)