When Kathleen Jones started working for the Plaistow Police Department in the mid-1980s, members of the community couldn’t help but stare or do a double take.
“People would say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s a girl!’ ” said Jones, now chief of the department.
Jones will never forget pulling up to the town’s Cumberland Farms to conduct a follow up investigation as the detective on a robbery case there. She was not wearing her uniform and her gun was concealed beneath her coat.
“I hopped out of my marked cruiser to go into the store. This older gentleman, probably in his mid-70s, said to me, ‘Isn’t it nice your husband let you borrow the cruiser to get groceries,’ ” Jones recalled with a laugh.
A lot has changed since Jones began her law enforcement career more than 30 years ago. More female officers are working in New Hampshire police departments, but they remain the minority.
Women make up more than 50 percent of the state’s population, but less than 8 percent of local police officers are women, and the same is true of state troopers.
In Concord, 10 out of the department’s 86 sworn officers are female, which at 12 percent is slightly higher than the state average. And like most cities in the state, it has never had a female police chief.
Only five police chiefs in New Hampshire are women, and later this month that number could drop to four when Bow police Chief Erin Commerford retires for a job in the private sector.
Commerford became chief of the department more than eight years ago and yet still meets people who are shocked to learn a woman holds the top job. She is petite and at first glance doesn’t fit the common stereotype of a police officer.
But the profile of the American cop – the physically fit, tall, white man – is evolving. And as new and younger officers enter the profession, Commerford hopes the old school stereotype will be rejected, making it more acceptable for women and minorities to advance.
She argues that women’s advancement is important because they bring something to law enforcement that men cannot.
“I don’t think it’s definable,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just a level of understanding.”
While women have made notable strides in law enforcement, the profession remains by far a male-dominated one – and that’s true not just in New Hampshire but nationally. Gender stereotypes are still very much present in a female officer’s daily work, although they’re arguably less overt than they once were.
“There’s a generation of old-school cops that have perpetuated sexism in law enforcement, and I think once they retire it will get even better,” said Jill Rockey, a retired state police detective sergeant.
Rockey said when she retired in 2012 the work environment for women was improving, although there were still what she called “pockets of discrimination.”
“Women are judged very differently,” she said. “We’re scrutinized more.”
Many believe that in order to be a successful police officer, a person has to be tough and buff. Although the police academy has physical fitness standards that must be met, veteran officers say women should not be intimidated or deterred by them. Those who excel at physical fitness tests are not necessarily great cops.
“Police work is 90 percent brains, not brawns. If you think you’ve got to be the biggest, toughest, most physical specimen to be a police officer, you’re wrong. It’s a very small part of what we do,” said Bartlett police Chief Janet Hadley Champlin, the first female chief in Carroll County.
“I really hope there is a day when people don’t say, ‘It’s a female officer, male officer, gay officer or black officer.’ You’re either a good professional law enforcement officer or you’re not,” she said.
Champlin began her career in 1983 as the first female officer hired by the Chesire (Conn.) Police Department. Being a rookie was stressful. Being a woman added another layer of pressure. She felt she had to prove she was just as capable as the men, especially when it came to physical fitness.
Thankfully, she said, women are now more accepted in law enforcement and in paramilitary professions. It’s a different world, although not a perfect one, she said.
“I’m 55 years old, and certainly growing up in the 1960s, being a police officer was never a career I saw on my horizon. Little girls weren’t encouraged to become police officers or firefighters,” said Champlin. “Today, they say, ‘Now, I can do that!’ ”
For Concord police Officer Laura Spaulding, a personal experience inspired her to pursue a career as a police officer. She began her career in the military when she was just 18 years old and fresh out of high school.
“When I was 15 years old, my sister was in a relationship with a guy, and she was abused very badly,” Spaulding said. “When I watched her go through that it made me determined to do something about it.”
For four years, Spaulding has been a member of the Concord Police Department’s domestic violence unit. She believes female officers bring compassion and empathy to law enforcement at a time when it’s most needed.
While female police officers are no longer a novelty in New Hampshire, what remains of concern is a department’s ability to retain them and for women to have opportunities for advancement, just like their male counterparts. Less than 3 percent of the state’s police chiefs are female.
At the state police, there are only 27 female troopers out of approximately 350 total, which puts them on par with state averages. Lt. Nicole Armaganian said the agency struggles to recruit women and to shatter the perceptions of police work being for men.
When Armaganian started her career 21 years ago, there was a big push by the federal government for law enforcement agencies to recruit women and minorities. But after that, talk of retention or any further efforts to diversify started to fade – that is until recently, she said.
Armaganian learned about the history of the first female officers through a researcher who presented at a conference hosted by the Massachusetts Association of Women in Law Enforcement. Soon after attending, she questioned whether she had done her part to help women starting their careers.
“I realized I needed to pay it forward.”
She started by organizing a statewide leadership conference for female troopers in 2015. The success of that conference has since spurred plans for a New England-wide one in October at the Massachusetts Police Academy.
“It’s about giving our female troopers the tools for professional development,” Armaganian said. “It’s not to say men aren’t entitled to these opportunities, but men network all the time without realizing it because there are so many of them.”
Commerford, like Armaganian and Rockey, began her law enforcement career with New Hampshire State Police in the mid-1990s. Although there are more female officers in 2016 than two decades ago, few are working in supervisory positions, she said.
To change a culture takes at least 20 years, Rockey surmised. Further, she said, any organization that has been predominately male for most of its history is going to have a harder time changing.
But the fight for equality is necessary, veteran officers said. They assert that the law enforcement profession is better today because of the service of women.
Commerford wonders how many victims of crime may not have come forward if they had not had the chance to talk to a female officer.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come into our department and said, ‘I only want to talk to a woman,’ ” Commerford said.
Officer Spaulding echoed the sentiment. The majority of domestic violence victims are women, and it’s often easier for them to trust and confide in another female.
“I know what victims go through, and how hard it can be sometimes for them to trust a police officer,” Spaulding said. “There was a time when they didn’t have a choice, but I think the profession has learned the benefits of accommodating the victim, who otherwise might not speak out.”
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)