Abstract
For 15 years, between 2000 and 2015, I’ve been working on and off as a senior lecturer in criminology at the Swedish National Police Academy (SNPA) in the northern outskirts of Stockholm. The ups and downs have been significant, including admission closures and immense increases in the numbers of students. Not least have there been ample rumours about the future of the picturesque campus per se as well as the future of police basic training. In this chapter I’ll try to elaborate the long-lasting, and a bit muddy, developments of Swedish police basic training and what its future might hold. To paraphrase the title of David H Bayley’s (1994) classic book Police for the Future, in the case of Sweden the discussions regarding police basic training for the future has been going on for so long that the future has become the present. Noteworthy is that the perspectives for the future in Bayley (ibid) just contains the organization and new strategic ways of policing. Basic training is, on the whole, disregarded.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Speech given at the SNPA by the former chair of the Police Union Jan Karlsén, May 2005.
- 2.
The Swedish Agency for Public Management published the first investigation regarding the reform (Statskontoret 2016). In the report there are more headings under “challenges” than under “implemented changes”.
- 3.
Högskola (high school) is like a parallel to “university college”. See also the German term “hochschule”.
- 4.
Växjö University is nowadays called Linnæus University.
- 5.
- 6.
The distance between Södertörn University and the SNPA is 30 km. It can be noted that in the future there will just be further education at the SNPA, and the name “SNPA” will also cease to exist.
- 7.
A Conservative win always leads to that they form a coalition government with two-three other parties that can be described as Conservative-Liberal, with the Conservatives as the biggest and most significant party.
- 8.
After the 2014 election the Social Democrats formed a coalition government with the Swedish Green Party.
- 9.
Nearly half of the respondents thought that police basic training already was a higher education, which of course the Police Union reacted strongly to (Polisförbundet 2012).
- 10.
When this political numeric goal was reached the admission to the SNPA was closed for a year and employees were made redundant. In 2011 the SNPA reopened the admission and some formerly redundant staff was re-employed.
- 11.
At the Conservatives homepage (www.moderat.se) there is nothing found about police basic training. Last accessed 27 September 2016.
- 12.
The preceding investigation (SOU 2008: 39) suggested an administrative move from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry for Education and Research.
- 13.
There are continuous comparisons with the Swedish Defence University which became a higher education in 2008, but continued to be located outside existing universities when security issues were assessed.
- 14.
In Norway there are two other locations (Kongsvinger and Bodö) where police basic training is being pursued in cooperation with the main in Oslo.
- 15.
Police teachers to a high extent see a conflict in this matter and often conclude that it will discourage them from continuing teaching. The discussion also includes questions of where and when to wear the uniform.
- 16.
A noteworthy novelty is that in 2016 two employees at the Police Authority (Stockholm Region) were admitted (with payment) as designated police researchers to the research programme in criminology at Malmö University, where no police basic training will be pursued.
- 17.
Written Swedish was cancelled from the qualifying tests some years ago.
- 18.
During my years at the SNPA the Teacher of the Year Award—Students’ Choice was always won by a police teacher.
References
Bayley, D. H. (1994). Police for the Future. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bergman, B., & Heder, M. (2013). Polisstudenters och polisers uppfattning om polisutbildningen. Solna: Polishögskolan.
Brottsförebyggande rådet. (2013). Satsningen på fler poliser. Vad har den lett till? Rapport 2013:12 Stockholm: Fritzes.
Brulin, C., Eriksson, N., Ridderstad, A., & Sarre, R. (2010). Extern utvärdering av polisutbildningen vid Umeå universitet. Umeå: Umeå universitet.
Granér, R. (2004). Patrullerande polisers yrkeskultur. Lund Dissertations in Social Work, Lunds Universitet.
Green, A. (1991). Brott och straff i partipolitiken. Kriminalpolitik på svenska. Lunds universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen.
Holgersson, S. (2005). Yrke: Polis. Yrkeskunskap, motivation, IT-system och andra förutsättningar för polisarbete. Linköping Studies in Information Science, Dissertation No 13: Linköpings Universitet.
Interpellation. 2006/07:26.
Interpellation. 2006/07:208.
Interpellation. 2008/09:616.
Interpellation. 2009/10:221.
Jakobsson Öhrn, H., & Stark, A. (2014). Polisiär grundutbildning. En kartläggning av höstterminen 2013 vid Polishögskolan i Solna, Linnéuniversitetet i Växjö och Umeå universitet, Solna: Polishögskolan.
Justitiedepartementet Ds 1996:11 Rekrytering och grundutbildning av poliser, Stockholm: Fritzes.
Justitiedepartementet Ju 2012/8213/PO Regeringsbeslut.
Kommittédirektiv. 2006:10 En ny polisutbildning.
Kommittédirektiv. 2006:139 En polisutbildning för framtiden.
Kommittédirektiv. 2015:29 En förändrad polisutbildning.
Knutsson, J. (2010). Den myndighetsanknutna polisforskningen—en kommenterad biografi, Växjö: Linnéuniversitetet.
Lauritz, L. E., & Hansson, J. (2013). Lära för livet—att vara polis i en föränderlig värld. In N. Eklund & L. Landström (Eds.), Polisen—verksamhet och arbete (pp. 66–82). Malmö: Liber.
Löfven, S. (2014). Statement of Government Policy. Available at: http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/upload/Samarbetsregeringen/Statement%20of%20Government%20Policy.pdf. Accessed 14 Aug 2016.
Motion. 2005/06:Ju358 Polisen i medborgarnas tjänst.
Motion. 2006/07:Ju377 En förbättrad polisutbildning.
Nitz, L. (2012, March 17). Lyssna på allmänhetens krav om en bättre polisutbildning, Beatrice Ask, Aftonbladet.
Nitz, L. (2014, September 23). Visa handlingskraft för en professionell polis, Svenska Dagbladet.
Nitz, L. (2016, April 17). Ingen konkurrens om man vill bli polis längre. Expressen.
Nitz, L., Johansson, M., Sarnecki, J., & Granér, R. (2012, December 20). Vi behöver en kompetent polis, Expressen.
Olsson, J. (2013). Från självskydd till akademisk teori—att förena den polisiära och akademiska världen. In N. Eklund & L. Landström (Eds.), Polisen—verksamhet och arbete (pp. 83–100). Malmö: Liber.
Polisen. (2013). Södertörns högskola får utbilda poliser. Available at: https://polisen.se/Arkiv/Pressmeddelandearkiv/Rikspolisstyrelsen/Sodertorns-hogskola-far-utbilda-poliser/. Accessed 10 Aug 2016.
Polisförbundet. (2012). Åtta av tio svenskar vill reformera polisutbildningen. Available at: http://www.polisforbundet.se/blog/2012/03/19/atta-av-tio-svenskar-vill-reformera-polisutbildningen/. Accessed 8 Aug 2016.
Polishögskolan. (2012). Översyn av Polisprogrammet vid Sörentorp. Slutrapport. Solna: Dnr: PHS-750-1750/11.
Polisutbildningen Umeå universitet. (2015). Ansökan om inrättande av huvudområde polisiärt arbete för högskole- och kandidatexamen. http://www.umu.se/om-universitetet/pressinformation/pressmeddelanden/nyhetsvisning//polisutbildningen-i-umea-ger-hogskoleexamen.cid253980 Accessed 8 Aug 2016.
Rikspolisstyrelsen. (1997). Ny grundutbildning för poliser.
Rohdin, B., & Mikkonen, M. (2008). Uppföljning av Polisutbildningen för de studenter som tog examen vårterminen 2003 och 2005. Växjö universitet.
Schoultz, E. (2016). 36 platser gapar tomma på polisutbildningen. Polistidningen, 17 October
SFS. (2014:1105) Förordning om utbildning till polisman.
Socialdemokraterna. (2013). Ett tryggare Sverige. Bekämpa brotten och brottens orsaker. https://www.socialdemokraterna.se/Documents/Ett%20tryggare%20Sverige.pdf. Accessed 8 Aug 2016.
SOU. 1994:103 Studiemedelsfinansierad polisutbildning. Delbetänkande av 1994 års polisutredning. Stockholm: Fritzes.
SOU. 2008:39 Framtidens polisutbildning. Slutbetänkande. http://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/7ff601e38a2842d495a8183c60e01ee1/framtidens-polisutbildning-sou-200839 Accessed 21 Feb 2016.
SOU. 2016:39 Polis i framtiden—polisutbildningen som högskoleutbildning. Betänkande av polisutbildningsutredningen. Stockholm: Wolters Kluwer.
Statskontoret. (2016) Ombildningen till en sammanhållen polismyndighet. Delrapport 1 om genomförandearbetet (2016:22).
Örebro universitet. (2011). Två frågor om polisutbildningen, http://www.blaljus.nu/sites/default/files/filarkiv/pdf/2012_arkiv/enkat_om_polisutbildn.pdf. Accessed 16 Aug 2016.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Green, A. (2018). Police Basic Training in Sweden: Vocational or Academic? An Educational Muddle. In: Rogers, C., Frevel, B. (eds) Higher Education and Police. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58386-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58386-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64408-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58386-0
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)