Ingrid Jonas is a retired Vermont State Police trooper. She started on patrol, but worked as a detective for most of her career.
Reporter Erica Heilman sat down with her on her couch, and they talked for a while about class assumptions in law enforcement.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Ingrid Jonas: I think that the world that I interacted with made assumptions about the class of your typical police officer.
Perhaps you didn't have a higher education. You graduated from high school, you might have gotten a degree or not, but it wasn't required, and that cops were more like blue collar or middle or lower middle class. The job itself is seen, or had been seen, as really honorable, that it was, like, a good way to earn a pension — things that you could rely on when you got older, if you didn't have a lot of money coming your way from your relatives when they died.
Erica Heilman: So you imagine that people assume, when there are policemen coming up to the door of their car, that this might be somebody who doesn't have a higher education? Those are some of the assumptions.
Ingrid Jonas: Right. And I also have assumptions going into this conversation, right? Like, in my mind, cops are really street smart, and they're savvy, and they're willing to ask super hard questions. They're willing to be on the front lines of stuff that's going on in their state or their community. Like, being willing to look at dead bodies, figure out who killed the dead body, talking to all kinds of people, going into their houses, being on the front lines of stuff.
We're out here doing your dirty work, and sometimes you hate us for it.Ingrid Jonas
Whereas if you're from a wealthier class, you have other people do that sh-t for you. That's kind of how I see it through my own bias. We're out here doing your dirty work, and sometimes you hate us for it. Like, that's it.
Erica Heilman: Did you feel, when you entered law enforcement, that you were kind of getting a new perspective on the way the world looks at class?

Ingrid Jonas: I was just intrigued by the idea of being a detective someday, right? Like that was what really motivated me. Just to, like, solve crimes and catch bad guys.
And then somehow my college found out that I had become a cop, and they wanted me to come back and talk to them about being a cop. I was like, "Wow, OK," because no other person had ever graduated from my college at the time who became a cop. And I was like, "that's interesting." So I went and spoke on this panel, and it was lawyers. There were a lot of actors and actresses, and I felt like I was a lesser class than they saw themselves as being in, because I was talking about the gritty aspects of being a cop.
Erica Heilman: Talking about dead bodies.
Ingrid Jonas: Right. And they were talking about, like, intellectual property law.
And also, I was from Vermont, which also had a class assumption. I remember people being like, "Well what do your parents do? Did they like work at a ski area?" And I was like, "What? What do you mean?" People just thought they must just have to work at ski areas in Vermont, because that's all they had ever done in Vermont. Just come there and go skiing.
Erica Heilman: Did rich people ever treat you, when you were in law enforcement, did you ever get vibed by people for class reasons?
Ingrid Jonas: Yeah, I mean, there was definitely some of that on patrol. Like, you would stop a car for speeding, and you'd get the vibe that this was a wealthy person or people, like, depending on the make and model of the car, just the attitude of the drivers. There was definitely condescension, for sure. Like, I'm just a dumb cop that's stopping you for speeding, and you're on your way to or from Montreal and can't be bothered with this ticket, you know. There was definitely that.
And cops would do it to certain people that we would go to over and over again who were in extreme poverty. There would be that class dynamic of us coming in with authority, and they'd see us as messing with their life and making things harder for them and arresting them for stuff that they weren't going to be able to afford to get a good lawyer to get them out of it.
It was not just a myth that wealthier perpetrators got better deals, and it probably had to do with their ability to pay for attorneys.Ingrid Jonas
And then there was, you know, some of the sexual assault cases where you would get a call, because you know it's happening in all classes, right? Sexual assault. But certain classes have insulation more so than others. So when you would catch a case where the perpetrator was wealthy, you could really feel the difference, where lawyers really quickly are shutting things down and a lot of cleanup happening much quicker than you would ever see in your more typical cases. It was not just a myth that wealthier perpetrators got better deals, and it probably had to do with their ability to pay for attorneys.
And then attorneys, that's a whole other class thing, like just the way attorneys would treat officers. There was, I think, assumptions, probably, that we all made of each other, but definitely I think attorneys would assume that cops weren't as bright as we were, sometimes.
Erica Heilman: Do cops make assumptions about attorneys?

Ingrid Jonas: Oh my God, definitely, yeah. I mean, everybody makes assumptions about attorneys. They kind of signed up for that, I think.
Erica Heilman: So what class are you now?
Ingrid Jonas: Me? I am in a comfortable class, comfortable middle class. That's kind of how I see myself. Like, I'm not poor, I'm not loaded, I'm —
Erica Heilman: Do you ever buy expensive condiments?
Ingrid Jonas: Definitely, yeah. I buy some expensive condiments. I have a CSA share. I don't know. I only have one bathroom in my house. If I were some higher class I could have two bathrooms, or even a two-and-a-half bathroom, or I could have an en suite bathroom. I just learned what an en suite is. It's like a bathroom in your bedroom. I was at a book reading retreat, and I didn't know what the en suite meant, so I asked the person at the retreat.
Erica Heilman: And they were like, "You must be a cop."
Ingrid Jonas: Right. "You must be a cop. You dumb cop."
[Laughing]
This audio story was produced by Peter Engisch.
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