Like most police forces across the country, Newton’s has few female officers. However, Lt. Amanda Henrickson has taken an important step in breaking barriers by recently becoming the first woman to lead a department bureau in the city.
Now the highest-ranking female officer in Newton and only the second woman in the city to become a lieutenant, she said she initially hesitated to accept the job as commander of the Community Service Bureau.
“I considered not taking a promotion,” said Henrickson, a married mother with two young children. She weighed the pros and cons of giving up a position she enjoyed and changing her predictable schedule.
With her husband’s support, she decided to leave her previous position as police prosecutor, where she acted as the liaison between the courts, the department, and district attorney’s office.
When asked why she thought her promotion is important for the community, she said that “it shows that women are capable of stepping into these strong roles. … We have female officers here we want to lift up … and transform our agency.”
Coincidentally, half of the officers in the Community Services Bureau are women and half are men, which is unprecedented.
Encouraging more women
“Currently, women make up only 12 percent of sworn officers and 3 percent of police leadership in the U.S.,” according to 30X30, a national initiative to advance women in policing. The organization’s goal is to increase the representation of women in police recruit classes to 30 percent by 2030.
The Newton Police staff numbers are slightly better than the country as a whole: Of the 139 sworn officers, 21 — or a little more than 15 percent — are women, according to Henrickson.
“It’s not easy to try and balance … home life and a career in law enforcement,” Henrickson said.
One possible way to attract and retain more women officers is if the City decided to offer paid parental leave, she said.
“Municipalities are statutorily excluded from this coverage unless the governing body votes to opt-in for the MA PFML [Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave] coverage,” said Henrickson.
All in the family
Henrickson began her journey into law enforcement after one of her brothers encouraged her to join him in taking the entrance exam.
“It was nerve-wracking for me to consider going into it,” she recalled, but she liked that officers “were able to make an impact.”
Henrickson and her brother were supportive of each other as they went through the academy, and both were hired by the Worcester Police. However, due to budget woes, their entire class was laid off before they even graduated in 2009.
“It was a stressful time for a lot of people,” she said.
Worcester’s loss was Newton’s gain when the City hired the siblings.
“It was welcoming for me to see that there were other women [officers] in Newton,” said Henrickson, who recalled there was only one other woman in her academy graduating class.
She has spent her entire career in Newton in different capacities: Patrol officer, sergeant, patrol sergeant, police prosecutor out of the Detective Bureau, and lieutenant in the Patrol Bureau in the second platoon before her current role.
Connecting with the community
As the department continues to implement the recommendations of the Newton Police Reform Task Force, Henrickson said that she recognizes “sometimes there is a stigma” when she tells people she is a member of the department.
Residents call police in a time of crisis, but “not everyone may want to interact with us.”
Henrickson said one way to improve relations is by “finding ways to go out into the community and have them get to know us.” For example, Henrickson said she and another female officer will be speaking to a local group about being women in law enforcement.
She said another goal for the department is to increase staffing levels.
“There’s a lot of projects that we’d like to start,” and more officers are needed, said Henrickson.
