Jeanne Clark’s career has been a list of firsts: The first woman to become a Chicago Police Department district commander; graduate of the first co-ed Chicago police academy class; the first woman to reach the rank of deputy superintendent.
Clark donned her uniform and hit the streets in 1975, when a woman patrol officer was such an oddity that she drew stares from the public and skepticism from fellow cops. For Clark, that wasn’t a problem. The job was so fascinating, she hardly even noticed.
“It was like walking into a novel–living a novel that has never been written,” she said. Every day was like “turning a page into a whole new world. I saw things I’d never seen before. I didn’t want to be off, because I was afraid I’d miss something.”
This week, after 26 years, Clark, the highest-ranking woman officer on the force, is retiring. All along the way, she’s been a cop who defied stereotypes. Not just a woman, but a woman who holds a master’s degree. A cop who reads Shakespeare, listens to Mozart and has season tickets to the Lyric Opera. A woman who rose through the ranks as history moved along with her.
In her 1975 police academy class, “there were maybe 20 of us,” said Clark. Today there are almost 3,000 women, about 22 percent of the 13,500-member force, according to Chicago Police Department statistics.
The disbelieving stares have long since disappeared. Still, Clark hopes that other women will pick up where she left off–and that their numbers will continue to grow. As deputy superintendent of staff services, she heads the unit responsible for police training, labor negotiations and neighborhood relations. Yet another duty, employee recruitment, has drawn much of her energy. “I made it my passion,” she said, “trying to get outreach off the ground.”
Formal recruitment only recently became a challenge for the police department, which in years past was overwhelmed with eager applicants, both male and female. In 1991, more than 30,000 applicants signed up for the test.
The numbers dropped dramatically after 1997, said Paula Schmeer, a sergeant in Clark’s bureau who was one of the 1991 applicants. That’s when the department raised its education requirement from a high school diploma to two years of college credit.
It’s now more difficult to attract potential officers, though applicant numbers are creeping back up, Schmeer said.
Clark has found that many qualified candidates, particularly women and minorities, don’t even consider police careers. Women worry that they can’t cut it, that they aren’t strong enough, tough enough or able to defend the people they’d have to defend. Clark has an answer for them, which comes in the form of a question: Women, what would you do to protect your child, or the people you love?
“Do you think you’d be timid and shy?” she asked. “No. You’d be like a lioness.”
To that end, Clark’s unit is developing a series of recruitment posters aimed at women. One, said Schmeer, pictures a female officer on her day off, picnicking with her family. Its caption reads: “Protecting My Family.” The next frame shows the woman in uniform, with the city skyline behind her, and says: “Protecting My City.”
The series features other scenes depicting women in various police jobs, Schmeer said, including one of a bomb technician defusing an explosive device.
That isn’t to say that a police officer’s job is always a dangerous one. More frequently, a good cop uses reason and diplomacy to handle a tricky situation, Clark said. “The pen is mightier than the sword. And in police work, the investigation part–the part that uses your brain–is 99 percent of the job.”
Once Clark retires she plans devote a portion of her time to writing a book, which would include fictionalized accounts of some of her experiences, she said.
Clark herself has never shot anyone on the job, she said, and only rarely joined in a physical fight. When women officers have to fight, they can fall back on techniques taught at the academy, which demonstrates use of pressure points and takedowns to help officers handcuff unruly suspects, said Schmeer.
Back in the 1970s, women were under the watchful eye of policemen who wondered whether they could do the job. Some were sexist, said Clark, “but so many others were ready to make things work.” Male officers who’ve risen through the ranks with Clark say they’ve seen a lot of minds change along the way.
“I actually made sergeant and lieutenant when she did,” said David Dougherty, commander of the traffic section. “She’s more than proven herself at every step of her career. . . . You’ve seen a whole generation of police officers changing their attitude [toward women] because of people like her.”
“People were watching them and expected they couldn’t live up to the job,” said Joseph DeLopez, deputy superintendent of technical services, a 30-year veteran. “They fooled a lot of people.”
A Hispanic who joined the force when Hispanics were also few in number, DeLopez’s experience mirrors Clark’s. “You were always being watched by other officers,” he recalled, “to see how you’d perform.”
There are now 1,821 Hispanics in the Chicago Police Department, or 13.4 percent, according to department statistics. African-Americans account for 26 percent while Asians and Native Americans collectively make up about 2 percent.
Clark said she strongly feels that police departments must reflect the populations they serve. That “takes a lot of the `otherness’ away,” she said. “People look up and see this could be their brother, their uncle, a person they might know.
“We’re not an occupational army.”
The history of women on the Chicago department began in 1881, when the first “matron” was hired to oversee a rising number of female arrestees, according to a department publication.
In 1912, the city passed the “Women Police Ordinance” and hired 10 “policewomen” to work primarily with female prisoners and children. In 1956, the policewomen were placed in uniform, complete with skirts, leather pumps and matching shoulder bags.
It wasn’t until the early 1970s, though, that U.S. courts ruled that the Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, opening the door for women to move from “policewomen” to full-fledged police officers.
Today the Chicago department’s “Ambassador Program” reaches out to potential female and minority police recruits through colleges, career fairs, radio stations and religious organizations, Schmeer said. When a group of African-American ministers pushed for more blacks on the force, “we brought those people back in and said, `We understand your concerns. Now help us.’ We gave each reverend 10 applications,” Schmeer said.
Though the raw numbers have dropped, the sergeant boasted that “the quality of recruits we’re getting is outstanding.” Many are attracted by benefits, including a reimbursement program that pays tuition to officers who continue their education, said Schmeer, who earned a master’s degree while working as a cop.
Reimbursement is 100 percent for those who get an A and 80 percent for those who get a B or C. Starting salaries top $33,000, she said, and jump to $43,000 after 18 months. Time off also increases, with 13 paid holidays and 20 vacation days after the first year, said Schmeeer.
Like Clark, the sergeant also said that the work is “wonderfully exciting. . . . No day is ever the same. It’s coming out when people call you–trying to help.
“To the people who don’t like to be pinned to a desk, who find themselves in dead-end jobs or jobs that aren’t tapping their potential, whether it’s a computer job or a bank job, they really should consider the police,” Clark said. “I’d like to say to women and minorities, if they want to be of service to their community, there isn’t a better way. To women, I want to say: this is something you can do.
“It’s kind of nice to be first. It’s been exciting. But I want women to come after me. Now that I’m leaving,” she said, “I want to hand the torch over.”
