General News
23 March, 2023
Sarah reflects on 40-year police career
Part of the force for close to four decades, a local police officer stepped down from the job last year — no longer out patrolling, she’s now made the cut into another business. After joining the police academy in 1983, Leading Senior Constable...
Part of the force for close to four decades, a local police officer stepped down from the job last year — no longer out patrolling, she’s now made the cut into another business.
After joining the police academy in 1983, Leading Senior Constable Sarah Carless retired from the Maryborough Police, where she served for 25 years, in August 2022.
Leaving behind a strong legacy, Sarah entered law enforcement following the introduction of Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act which targeted sex-based discrimination — making her part of one of the first squads that boasted the same number of men and women.
“Back then, it was a different kettle of fish in that it was more of a male dominated field. They had women in the women’s division but when they were recruiting, they would only recruit two or three women per squad of around 20 to 25,” she said.
“Prior to me joining, the Act kicked in and Victoria Police started recruiting women full-on. It was something really new at the time.
“They didn’t have all that many women in the hierarchy at that stage either whereas now we’ve had a female chief commissioner even — we’ve seen that change firsthand.”
Sarah has witnessed a series of other progressive developments over the course of her time in the policing role.
“From then there has been a huge shift — Victoria Police has gone from being a reactive department to a very proactive one,” she said.
“In our time if you got a call you’d deal with it and that would be the end of it but now there’s a lot more programs focusing on development, interaction, and networking within our departments.
“Now if something happens we follow up and make sure the victims are supported in their wellbeing. They are an absolute number one priority.”
While the organisational changes have occurred over time, Sarah has also played a part in uplifting the force through her involvement in the Police in Schools Program.
“I’d go to schools and basically be a face of Victoria Police and I would conduct a session with the kids, talk to them, interact with them and cover rules, rights, responsibilities and safety,” she said.
“The purpose of that was to basically have that connection with the children as they come up because most of the time the kids wouldn’t have any contact with the police unless something went wrong in their life.
“It was a great program, the kids would call me ‘Senior Sarah’ and I remember some of them would come up to me and say they wanted to be a police officer like me.”
Now, after donning multiple roles in a policing capacity, the 60-year-old has settled into her farm life with her husband and two adopted teenage boys.
“It’s a good feeling to be retired. With police, you’ve always got something going on, there’s always something to be done. It’s the first time ever in all those years that I’ve actually had that free time — that freeness of not being required to chase up or follow up with something,” Sarah said.
“But I also really don’t know where I found the time to work because I’ve been more busy since I retired.
“I still have children at home so unlike a lot of people that retire, I’m still parenting.”
Apart from being a parent, she has also taken up another position — while it started off as a hobby, Sarah is now a professional barber, with her mobile business called Sheer Madness Barbering.
“I went back to TAFE and became a qualified certificate three men’s barber. I just worked in the industry for a little while and got a bit of experience and opened my own barber’s caravan,” she said.
“It was fun and I thought it’s a way of having a small income and having a direction when I retired, instead of being redundant.
“I set up really randomly when I feel like it and it’s also a really nice way of keeping in contact with the community.”
Although Sarah has moved on to other things, she has a word of advice for the community’s aspiring police officers.
“It’s a good idea to join when you’re a little bit older after you maybe get a qualification,” she said.
“Often you’re dealing with people at their worst and it takes some life skills to actually manage the situation — I’m not saying you won’t be successful if you join young, there are many successful people who come in young but we are an older police force now and the recruits are generally a lot older — pushing 30.
“Overall it’s been a very rewarding job for me but I think you just need to get a little bit more life under your belt, a little bit more maturity and you’ll handle the job a lot more easily.”