Umeå universitets logga

The aim of this compilation thesis is to contribute knowledge on police officers´ professional development from the beginning of police education to six years in the police career. The thesis is based on empirical material collected in a European research project called RECPOL (Recruitment, Education, and Career in the Police) and interviews by the author. For this thesis police students that began their police education in 2011 in Sweden is the focus. The thesis consists of four papers. The first paper, an article, presents a quantitative study that examine how subgroups in the Swedish police student cohort value the importance of different kinds of competencies in the end of their theoretical part of the police education. The second paper, a chapter, presents a quantitative study that examines how police students in the six counties value the importance of different kinds of competencies in the beginning and the end of their police education. Then the third paper investigates how the Swedish police officers value different competencies from the beginning of police education to three years in police careers. Lastly, the fourth paper, an article, explores how 13 Swedish police officers that are part of all the above described studies, experience their professional development from police education to six years in police careers. The analysis in this thesis combines police socialisation and learning pathways with a frame factor perspective. The longitudinal study shows that in police education becoming police officers value both traditional (decisiveness and practical skills) and emerging (flexibility and diversity) competencies as highly important for the upcoming police career. When looking into the Swedish cohort as they transform from police education to police practice the valuation of professional competencies are stable for some and diverging for others. Two competencies, diversity and practical skills, are valued less important. Furthermore, the study shows that police officers during their professional development have been supported in differing ways which has as consequence that they develop varying learning pathways, either self-directed or information-oriented, to develop their competencies. Female police officers´ professional development is affected when pregnant and working as patrolling officers. They need to take more responsibility for their competence development as they need to shift to other tasks for security reasons. In the concluding analysis and discussion sections, connections are drawn between police socialisation and learning organisations, as well as the influence of frame factors and organisational factors on police officers´ professional development.