Linda Williams' rise to deputy commissioner a leap in the long road to South Australian women police equality
South Australian police deputy commissioner Linda Williams gained academic qualifications after starting with the force as a 17-year-old cadet.
Image courtesy SA Police
Linda Williams became the highest-ranking female police officer in South Australian history as deputy commissioner in 2015. Williams had been a police officer for 35 years, joining the force in 1980 as a 17-year-old cadet. As deputy commissioner, she replaced Grant Stevens, who became commissioner that year.
Williams’ academic qualifications include a bachelor of law and a postgraduate diploma in applied criminology and police management from Cambridge University.
In another Australian first, the South Australian police force in 1999 appointed a female police officer, senior sergeant Jane Kluzek, to a tactical group: the STAR Group.
But, although woman were admitted to the South Australian force on equal pay with men in 1915, the journey to equality in other areas was a long one. Women weren’t admitted to partial training courses at the Thebarton barracks until 1953.
The 1968 restructuring of the police force saw the women's branch being absorbed into the main force in 1973. As part of the change, female police officers began to wear newly designed uniforms, dispensing with the impractical miniskirts, high-heeled shoes, hat, coat and handbag. The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 legalised women to be promoted into all areas of the police force and to remain in the department after getting married.
After two male officers were shot in 1977, women were issued with firearms as part of their general patrol equipment. Two years later, women were recruited under the same criteria as males and received the same training.
Mixed patrols, with female officers joining their male counterparts, had been introduced in 1974, creating some controversy within the force. Officers in charge of police stations asked male constables to take their female partners home to meet their wife. Also controversial into the 1990s was the concept of sending two women police officers out on the patrol beat together.
