Jan
Kempers was born in 1945. She
joined the Queensland Police Service in 1967 and when she retired in January
2000, she was the longest serving female police officer in Queensland so enjoyed a long and fulfilling career.
This is her story:
Jan
approached police recruiting in Brisbane while on holidays from her home town of
Rockhampton. Entry age was then 23
and Jan aged 22 was surprised to have her application approved.
Rigorous testing followed and she was included in the probationary intake
of 21 August 1967 in Brisbane.
“I
started out at the depot as a probationary - one of the first things was they
marched us around to the depot store and gave us a pile of books about 18 ins
high and I took one look at those and dropped my bundle.
After about three days, common sense reasserted itself and I thought
“If other people have passed this I can” and I settled down to study. It was an interesting four months. We did law, police duties, typing, traffic drill, swimming,
judo - because I was a country person I had driving lessons in the city - I got
to know the north side of Brisbane fairly well.”
Jan
drilled for the swearing-in parade although, as she was not yet 23, she could
not join her fellow probationers for the parade.
Her sergeant agreed to excuse her from drill.
“Towards
the end of the period they started drilling people for the swearing-in parade
and I thought this was a big rugged because I wasn’t going to be on it.
I spoke to the sergeant telling him it wasn’t necessary that I drill
with the others because I wasn’t going to be on the parade and he agreed.
I’m glad he did because it would have been a little cruel as I was
becoming increasingly upset at drilling for something I wasn’t going to be
part of.”
Jan
was posted to the Juvenile Aid Bureau for five weeks before being sworn in on
Monday 22 January 1968 the first working day after her birthday on 20 January
and sent to City station as the only uniformed policewoman.
Uniformed policewomen were a novelty in those days and their roles were
not clearly defined or supported.
“It
was a bit of a culture shock because there were very few women in the job and no
uniformed women at City station at that stage.
You were basically left to your own devices.
Nobody was terribly interested because they didn’t know what to do with
you and I simply didn’t know how to establish my credentials.
Occasionally I did some escorts. I
did an overnight escort by train with a prisoner to Rockhampton.
Didn’t see the inside of a court house.
Searches of women prisoners - that was about it.
After a month I was returned to Juvenile Aid Bureau where I stayed four
years - that was wonderful. Staff
mixture of male and female - worked in pairs - usually male and female together.
Women officers recognised for their own value.
We participated equally in investigations - went to Children’s Court -
counselled children who had been shoplifting or in other forms of anti-social
behaviour. Great place, wonderful
atmosphere - close knit group.
She
worked at the Juvenile Aid Bureau when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July
1969. The day before she had a car
accident and was recovering from
whiplash while watching the event on television.
The day became more significant when she returned to work and interviewed
children about their misdemeanours. When
asked “What day did this happen?” many replied “That was the day the men
landed on the moon. We had a
holiday from school”. “There
was a lot of theft, break and enters, fornicating, whatever on the day the men
landed on the moon.
“After
four years at Juvenile Aid Bureau I transferred to Townsville and remained for
14 years. I enjoyed Townsville even
though I met my husband back in Brisbane after I went up there. He ultimately came to Townsville to live and we married in
1974. Our son was born in 1980 in
Townsville so we have fond memories of Townsville. Whilst in Townsville I did general policing, communications
room, enquiries, Senior Sergeant’s clerk, CI Branch clerk, worked in District
Office - and where I enjoyed what I did. I
found I had good people skills and related well to other divisions in the
district. I acted as staff officer
to the state counter disaster co-ordinator who is the district officer in charge
of the police district. I organised
meetings, kept up registers of equipment and people available in times of
disaster. Very interesting - read a
lot about disasters around the world - lucky to have James Cook University who
had centre for disaster studies - gave us advice on new trends in disaster
management.
“In
1985 I was promoted to Sergeant 2nd class and went to Mundingburra for a brief
time then back to the District Office in Townsville when the position was
created there for a 2nd class sergeant. In
1985 I decided it was time to move on and began applying for positions in
Brisbane and I was appointed - promoted and transferred to the District Office
at Woolloongabba, South Brisbane district.
That was a culture chock. In
Townsville, the District Officer was responsible for 21 permanent stations and
one temporary one. There were a
number of CI Branches and a Juvenile Aid Bureau, water police, dog squad,
prosecutions, stock squad - basically the same infrastructure as Brisbane but on
a smaller scale. I went to South
Brisbane district and we had eight stations, small traffic branch, and small
crime squad. I found it very
difficult. The previous incumbent
had organised the office to such a degree that there was really nothing for the
sergeant to do. I felt quite lost
and I was starting to lose skills which I used every day in Townsville.
“The
Fitzgerald inquiry started and new headquarters building was being erected in
Roma Street and part of that was to be Headquarters Property Section for all the
units contained in headquarters and that included state crime operations,
Brisbane Central district and a few other sundry sections.
I was seconded to electronic recording section.
The filing and storage of the tapes was to be part of the headquarters
property section so that’s where I finished up working initially and with
Inspector Dalton drawing up a manual for the property section.
I learned to use a computer - police service had only had a mainframe but
PCs were pretty much unheard of. I
went to ERI and found I was to write a manual on a computer.
I did it starting off with “here’s how you turn on the machine”.
“The property
section came into being 3 March 1990. I’d
been seconded in October 1989. I’d
drawn up a roster schedule for auditing all the property sections within the
city station. I obtained staff. We audited each section, we moved the property - transferring
into new property books. Quite a
hectic exercise -shifting property from one room to the other every second day.
In the interim trying to record the property received in the new books
and have it shelved before we got the next lot.
We left CI branch till last because they had the most.
That took about a month. Property
section very interesting as we dealt with drugs.
Every movement had to be recorded for continuity purposes.
We had to be extremely careful. There
were many thousands of items - if something was put on the wrong shelf, we may
never find it again.”
Jan
moved to the Crime Prevention Bureau in February 1994 and to the Policing Policy
and Strategy Branch in August 1994. She
was seconded to the Speed Management Project in February 1996 which evolved into
the Traffic Camera Office in February 1997 where she remained until retirement
on 21 January 2000.
During
her career, Jan Kempers witnessed a lot of changes in the police force just as
there have been changes in society generally.
With the increase in the numbers of uniformed policewomen, the police
service and the public are more accepting of them.
In 1967 policewomen did not have equal pay.
“It’s
been a good career. It’s a
fascinating job. There’s a lot of
variety. It’s many careers in one
career.”
