Northwest : HUNTINGTON BEACH : Sergeant Hopes to See More Women on Force

Janet Perez--the Police Department’s only female sergeant and one of just five women officers on the 230-member force--believes more women are needed in law enforcement because they bring a different perspective to the job.

“I would love to see more women here, and in police work in general,” said Perez, one of 30 sergeants in the department. “Right now, there’s so few of us that it’s difficult to get that mixed perspective,”

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said he hopes to hire 16 to 20 new police officers, some of them women, in coming months.

“Law enforcement traditionally has been a white-male-dominated work force. So we have a responsibility to change that,” he said.

Any new hiring, however, depends on the fallout from the county’s fiscal crisis and decisions the City Council must make in January about the city’s $912,000 budget deficit, Lowenberg said.

The majority of new hires will fill vacancies created by retirements and attrition. Spots for six new police officers and a sergeant were created when the council recently decided to spend about $600,000 to put more police on the street.

A number of qualified women have applied, Lowenberg said.

Perez, 41, switched to police work after being laid off from her job as a fourth-grade teacher. In 1983, she landed a job with the King County Sheriff’s Department in Seattle.

Perez, whose husband is an Inglewood police lieutenant, joined the Huntington Beach Police Department in 1989 and was promoted to sergeant two years later. She teaches courses on sexual harassment and cultural diversity issues at the Golden West College Police Academy.

She said the rewards of the job include helping people and being a supervisor. “I like being able to make the decisions in the field,” she said. “You’re kind of your own boss.”