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The Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Theodora Wood, has said by dint of hard work female police officers had gone beyond their traditional roles conceived at the time of the inception of female policing to finding themselves at the forefront of modern policing in Ghana. She said given the necessary opportunity, training and resources, female police officers would be capable of excelling in positions of authority and influence. Launch of celebrations The Chief Justice said this when she launched the 25th anniversary celebration of the Police Women Association (POLAS) in Accra. POLAS, an association of policewomen in the Ghana Police Service, was formed principally to engender the recognition of policewomen�s competence and preparedness to assume positions of trust and responsibility by proving equal to the tasks of policing. The celebration was on the theme �Enlightened by our past, enriching the present and visioning the future of the police ladies.� The Chief Justice said she joined the police service 44 years ago as a young lawyer and worked as a public prosecutor in the circuit courts of Accra and the experience gained at the time had propelled her to this stage in her life. She said women in law enforcement had contributed in no small measure to public safety and security both domestically and globally and their contribution to deepening and sustaining Ghana�s democracy had found its rightful place in the historical constitutional records. Female recruits Justice Wood said the idea to recruit females into the then Gold Coast Police Force in 1952 was based on the emerging critical need for the police to professionally handle juvenile crime suspects and also offences committed by women. �The need is greater now than then, given the ever-increasing crime rate and yet the sophisticated and complex nature of crime and the upsurge in female and juvenile-related crimes,� she added. She mentioned some of these crimes to include domestic violence related crimes, cyber crimes, sexual harassment, prostitution, human trafficking and drug trafficking � the unfortunate incidence of women being mules and the use of children in armed conflict. Justice Wood further commended policewomen for their exploits in peace keeping missions and added that through their intervention, potentially volatile conflict zones had been saved from degenerating into global catastrophes. She charged the policewomen to help their male counterparts to be better and highly professional peace officers in order to strengthen public confidence and trust in the police service. Strength of policewomen Earlier in the welcome address, the President of POLAS, Commissioner of Police (COP) Mrs Joana Osei Poku, said the association was formed in January 1989 at a time policewomen were a little over 1,800, representing 12 per cent of the entire police population of 15,303. She said through the hard work of the predecessors and the regular creation of awareness of the important role of women in nation building, the strength of policewomen had increased to 7,583, representing 25 per cent as of June 2014, thus making it the highest policewomen population in Africa.