In police force, dearth of alumni

Mark Maraschiello ’87, a SWAT captain in the narcotics unit of the police department in Buffalo, N.Y., said the chief reasons for the lack of Princeton alumni in police forces are the profession’s personal risk and low financial gain. “Being a cop is not very lucrative, and it’s certainly dangerous,” said Maraschiello, who has sustained five serious injuries in the line of duty since he began his career.

“Most people [who] graduate from Princeton want to become doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs,” Maraschiello explained, referencing the hit 1945 song by Hoagy Carmichael. “I’m the only person I’ve known in 22 years of service that has an Ivy League degree.”

But University alumni looking to go into law enforcement also face ideological hurdles on multiple fronts. Amid the stigma of having an Ivy League education in a career line that does not always require a college degree, alumni in police forces must also confront the stigma among their classmates of graduating Princeton to pursue a less lucrative and prestigious career.

“Having a Princeton education is a double-edged sword,” Maraschiello explained. “Some people respect you and recognize your accomplishment … but part of the population is jealous immediately. They think that you must have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

James Ivie ’96, who was in active duty in the Air Force for four years before becoming a police officer in Charlotte, N.C., initially tried to conceal from his fellow officers that he had gone to Princeton. “At the beginning, I would always tell people that I just got out of the Air Force. It was a while before people found that I went to Princeton,” he said. “Personally, I tried to hide it.”

Ivie explained that he believes the bias against careers in law enforcement is also fostered within the Princeton community. “There’s a bit of a stigma that it’s not appropriate to go into a profession like law enforcement. There are higher expectations among students … I don’t want to say Princeton students look down on the career, but I think Princeton students ask themselves, ‘If I can do anything I want to do, why would I be a police officer?’ ”

Both Ivie and Maraschiello said they were drawn to careers in law enforcement primarily because they wanted to fulfill a public duty.

After graduating from Princeton, Ivie went into sports broadcasting for Major League Soccer, headquartered in New York. That career was short-lived, though, when he realized his desire to have a more direct effect on national security following Sept. 11, 2001.

Ivie explained that, as the director of broadcasting for Major League Soccer, he was in New York on 9/11, “which changed my priorities and motivated me to join the military.” Wanting to continue in a similar line of work when he came back from the military, he was encouraged by his wife to become a cop.

Joining a police force was not completely antithetical to his Ivy League education, Maraschiello said.

“The confidence that you garner from an education at Princeton is invaluable. Every time there was a promotional exam, I had the confidence to know I could complete it with no problem,” he explained.

Thomas Ortega ’83 left Princeton in 1982 during his junior year and served in the Navajo County Sheriff’s office in Holbrook, Ariz., for 21 years before retiring. He said Princeton was largely responsible for widening his worldview and helping him learn to adapt to unfamiliar situations.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“I grew up in Holbrook, Ariz., and had a very small-town mentality. A lot of the ideas that I came back with from Princeton emboldened me,” Ortega explained. “You could say that it did a lot to keep me in law enforcement.”

Emboldened by his Princeton education, Ortega entered law enforcement, informed by ideals not always held by his comrades.

“About one-third of officers are in law enforcement to benefit their communities,” Ortega said. “Most are in it for the power trip … I’m sorry to say that the screening procedures aren’t able to pick those people out.”

Yet for the few University alumni who do choose to become police officers, the job has been immensely rewarding, they said.

“If you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life,” Maraschiello said.