Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/21/2021
NORTHAMPTON – Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper was recently named 2021 Woman Law Enforcement Executive of the Year by the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives (NAWLEE).
According to the NAWLEE website, the Woman Law Enforcement Executive of the Year is a professional recognition of someone who has exhibited “sustained extraordinary professional accomplishments.” The nominations are assessed using six different criteria, one of which involves having an impact on improving women’s career paths and advancement in law enforcement.
“I was both surprised and humbled,” said Kasper, when describing her initial thoughts on receiving the award in an interview with Reminder Publishing. “It was an incredible honor.”
Kasper said that she was notified of her nomination back in July when the past president of NAWLEE called her about it, but Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz officially announced the award on Dec. 14.
Kasper became chief of the Northampton Police Department (NPD) in 2015, and has been a member of the department in 1998. Since the late-90s, Kasper has moved around in different roles within the department. She has been a patrol officer, a detective, a sergeant, a detective bureau lieutenant, a captain of operations and then the city’s chief.
Since becoming chief, the NPD has undergone a lot of changes. Early on in her tenure as chief, the department implemented the Drug Addiction and Recovery program (DART) in conjunction with Hampshire Hope. “We were transitioning away from looking at addiction as a crime and looking at drug addiction as a public health matter,” said Kasper, when referring to that program.
In 2016, the department joined then President Barack Obama’s Police Data Initiative, making Northampton the first city in Massachusetts to accomplish that at that time. The department created an open data team made up of officers and members of the public to identify where the NPD could be more transparent in administering data. Now, they have a webpage on the police website called “Accountability and Transparency,” which demonstrates specific information related to the inner workings of the department.
In 2020, the NPD was also the first police department in Western Massachusetts to implement a restorative justice program.
Beyond these initiatives, Kasper said that she is proud of the professional development that is continuously conducted within her staff. “We’ve done a ton of training on implicit bias and racism,” said Kasper. “We were one of the first departments to bring in instructors to come down and teach us about race, procedural justice and implicit bias.” The entire department was trained in this area a few years after those meetings.
“We’re in the midst of transitioning to a digital database for all of our personnel records,” said Kasper, when speaking on the current objective of the department. “This will be huge for us, so we can easily obtain data and documents that we need.” Currently, the database is organized by paper.
The NPD is also fully staffed with 60 full-time officers and seven civilian staff members, according to Kasper, and the department has changed their hiring practices to help create a quicker process – especially in light of the fact that they lost over 10 people to resignation in 2020 after the defunding vote by City Council.
“When I signed up to be a police officer and when I was putting applications in, Northampton was the only place I wanted to work,” said Kasper. “It’s a city that I love … It’s a supportive community that values arts and social engagement.”
When asked what she would tell a woman who wants to become a police officer in a line of work still dominated by men, Kasper had this to say: “It is incredibly important that police departments are reflective of their community. Any non-traditional police candidate should consider policing … it’s an opportunity to engage in public service with a community you love.”