Sheriff Dept. Action on Sex Harassment Hailed : Sensitivity: Women who brought complaints say they hope decree lives up to its goal of promoting gender quality. But one ex-deputy takes a wait-and-see attitude.

Susan Bouman Paolino recalled Friday the sexual slurs, the crude cartoons, the radio jabs that said “take a Midol,” harassment that finally persuaded her to retire after 18 years as a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Then she spoke of the consent decree filed in court this week that is supposed to put the nation’s third largest law enforcement agency on the cutting edge of gender equality.

“I’m happy it’s finally over and the department has finally agreed to do something,” said Paolino, whose bitter, 12-year court battle over sexual discrimination helped lead the way to sweeping concessions designed to make the 7,915-member Sheriff’s Department a better place for women. “But after 18 years there, I know that what they promise to do and what they actually do are two different things.”

The Sheriff’s Department agreed to spend up to $4.5 million over the next four years to end sexual harassment of its 989 women, setting up an ombudsman to field harassment complaints and a course in gender sensitivity for every member of the department, including Sheriff Sherman Block.

The agreement, said to be the most far-reaching of its kind ever won in the country, puts the department under the scrutiny of the federal courts to ensure a hospitable workplace for women. And it brings to a close a legal battle that brought forth ugly accounts of life as a female deputy sheriff--from bawdy locker room talk to refused requests for backup by male colleagues in the field.

“I’m relieved it’s over,” said Laura Beard, whose sexual harassment suit also was settled by the consent decree. “Education is what I saw lacking. I don’t think they intentionally mean to be ornery. Negative behavior was just never put in check.”

The decree was welcomed even by women who rose through the ranks despite promotional exams that some say favored men--women like Carol Painter, one of the department’s two female commanders.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” Painter said of the decree, which she was instrumental in bringing about. “It’s like being pregnant, going through a long labor and, finally, we’ve got something not just for today but for the future of the department.”

She and other ranking women said they never experienced harassment like that described by Deputy Alyson A. Fox, the victim of male prisoners who exposed themselves, threw food at her and put rats in her mailbox, allegedly at the urging of male deputies.

Such treatment was never endorsed by the department, Painter said, but was typical of a few ignorant individuals who sorely need the type of gender-sensitivity training required in the consent decree.

“This agreement says to the people who come after us, ‘This is the way you will live,’ ” she said. “A young deputy coming on the department today can do anything. If you or I were a 21-year-old woman being sworn today, we could be sheriff.”

Paolino, who said harassment by male colleagues gave her chest pains that ultimately forced her to retire, reserved celebration until she sees how the Sheriff’s Department carries out its promises.