Victoria’s elite special operations counter-terrorism squad will soon welcome women into its ranks for the first time in its 43-year history.
The Herald Sun can reveal force command believes it is a top priority to get female officers into the elite squad next year.
The Special Operations Group (SOG), dubbed the Sons of God, are called in to deal with the state’s worst – terrorists, gunmen, hostage sieges, high-risk arrests – and are revered as the best of the best within Victoria Police.
It’s a gruelling battle to be recruited into the crack unit and when they get in, recruits are trained for every scenario imaginable.
A new intake of SOG officers will be recruited early next year and the hope is a female will be among them.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther, who was promoted to his new role with overall command of the SOG last month, told the Herald Sun: “Making these workplaces attractive to women is a really important part of my focus going forward.
“We have not achieved it historically in the Special Operations Group, we have within the CIRT (Critical Incident Response Team).
“There is no doubt, if you look at tactical groups overseas, they certainly have women in their representation and there is no reason why that shouldn’t occur. Watch this space.”
Force command has acknowledged that the physical or physiological requirements of joining an elite unit like the SOG may have put off potential applicants in the past.
But work that has been done to get more women into the CIRT is now being replicated with the SOG.
Victoria Police has seen more female members joining the CIRT over the past few years.
The CIRT are deployed to deal with armed sieges and violent offenders.
In recent years Victoria Police has worked with psychologists and human performance experts from the Australian Catholic University to improve selection testing and ensure that it “reflects potential operational requirements”.
The science-based approach to assessing potential applicants has led force command to believe they have removed any potential advantage or disadvantage applicants may experience due to their gender.
In 2019/2020, 22 per cent of the successful CIRT applicants were women, compared to 2014/15 when only just over 2 per cent of successful CIRT applicants were women.
“They are quite specialised roles,” Mr Guenther said.
“Would a woman be breaking down doors? Maybe not but would a woman be a more effective sniper for example?
“There are roles (within SOG) that I think could be undertaken by women.
“We have had a desire to do that for some time.
“As someone who sat over that area for three years as a Superintendent back in 2010 it is one thing I would have liked to achieve.
“It is definitely on my agenda to achieve that now.”
The next intake for SOG and CIRT will take place early next year.
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