Hannah Jones speaks to a local news crew in Idaho about negative experiences at work after returning from leave (KIVI).
An Idaho woman is suing the law enforcement agency where she works over the hostile work environment she found waiting for her once she returned from maternity leave, according to a recent lawsuit.
Hannah Jones is suing the Mini-Cassia County Criminal Justice Center where she has worked as a deputy for more than three years.
The detention center is run by the Cassia County Sheriff's Office and located in Burley – a small town some 160 miles southeast of Boise.
Jones said most of her time as a deputy had been positive until coming back from maternity leave in October 2023 when she was "subjected to months" of "systematic harassment, discrimination, and retaliation," according to the lawsuit filed in Idaho state court.
"It was humiliating and it seemed really discrediting," the plaintiff told Boise-based ABC affiliate KIVI in an interview this week. "I love my job. I have gotten to meet a ton of really cool people."
The welcoming work atmosphere, however, substantially changed for the worse due to comments about her breastfeeding, Jones said.
"I came back and it was only almost immediate that I started getting some pretty embarrassing comments about me breastfeeding and me having to go to the bathroom to go pump," she told the TV station.
The woman alleges crude and sophomoric behavior from her peers.
"They would make comments about how I was a cow," Jones explained. "And they would actually make mooing noises at me as I was walking through the hallways and stuff as well – in front of inmates and other agencies."
The locus of the harassment also took a more explicit turn, she said.
"One of my male supervisors claimed that he thought I should have responded to a fight with my 'titties' out," Jones told KIVI.
Litigation was not the woman's first step. Jones initially reported the offending behavior but, she said, the complaint was not taken seriously and she eventually experienced retaliation for speaking out.
"I just felt like it wasn't taken seriously at all," she told the TV station. "I started experiencing what I believe to be retaliation and that's the point that it kind of got to be too much and I just couldn't handle it anymore."
Next, Jones said, she filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Idaho Human Rights Commission. Both Gem State agencies, she said, issued findings in her favor.
Now, she is suing the sheriff's office on claims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, according to the lawsuit.
Law&Crime reached out to the sheriff's office for comment on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming at time of publication.
Jones said the experience has changed her perspective on her career as a deputy and she worries about similar treatment discouraging other women from working in law enforcement.
"I feel my heart break for women that are coming into the force, knowing that that's probably going to happen to them too," she said.
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