A pregnant deputy can’t wear a utility belt, and without the belt, the deputy has nowhere to put her radio, keys, handcuffs, pepper spray or nunchucks.
“Without that, you don’t have anything,” said Denver Sheriff Department Deputy Lindsay Haviland.
In the past, that meant Denver deputies had to take leave or unpaid time off when they were pregnant once they felt unsafe working around inmates.
But a new policy that started in May has modernized the department’s policy for pregnant deputies. They now can ask for a modified duty so they are not working among inmates.
Haviland is the first to benefit from the change.
At more than nine months’ pregnant, Haviland is working at a desk at the County Jail on Smith Road where she answers the department’s information line. She has been doing so for the past two months.
“It’s a big step for this department,” she said.
The change was a recommendation from the department’s women’s commission, which was by then-interim Sheriff Elias Diggins. He asked Chief Connie Coyle to lead it after a small group of women held outside the Downtown Detention Center because one had been admonished by a deputy for breastfeeding in the lobby.
The new policy is the second change recommended by the commission, which is addressing issues that affect deputies and inmates. The department is because of the commission.
The new policy is similar to the pregnancy policies at the Denver Fire Department and Denver Police Department. If no desk jobs are available at the sheriff’s department, the city’s safety department will find one somewhere else within the agency, Coyle said.
Before the new policy was in place, a pregnant deputy had to make a tough choice — keep working around inmates and accept the risk associated with the job or spend her time off before she had the baby, Coyle said.
That old policy sometimes led to pregnant deputies exhausting their Family Medical Leave Act time, comp time and even vacation days before giving birth. They went unpaid while staying home with their newborn babies, Coyle said.
Haviland is in that situation, too. She learned she was pregnant in December, months before the policy went into effect. Shortly afterward, she got ill.
When her doctor ordered her not to wear her utility belt because of its weight and to avoid working with inmates because of the inherent risk, Haviland took 12 weeks of family leave and then spent her vacation time.
With the new policy in place, she came back to work in May. She will take three months of unpaid time after her baby girl arrives. But three months without a paycheck is better than six months without one, she said.
Coyle hopes the new policy helps the department retain its female deputies, who represent about 25 percent of the nearly 800 deputies on staff.
“Lindsay has a good career ahead of her here,” Coyles said. “Had that not been in place, I’m not sure she would still be here.”
