The Police University College is a university of applied sciences in Tampere, Finland providing police academy training and research under the Ministry of the Interior for the Police of Finland and other Finnish law enforcement units.
Education
The Police University College is responsible for overall police training and student selection, for organizing degree and advanced studies, and for applied research and development in the police field. The institution is under the guidance of the National Police Board and ultimately the Interior Ministry. It provides a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in police services and specialized courses, such as driver’s courses and an executive MBA in policing. Furthermore, the institution publishes targeted research on police matters, such as analysis on hate crime.
All new police officers in Finland graduate from the institute and the bachelor’s degree is considered a basic degree for law enforcement duties with training available in both Finnish and Swedish. In 2016, 132 police officers graduated from degree programmes and 6,100 people attended training outside the degree programmes offered by the University College.
Organization and campus
The University College employed 209 personnel, half of whom are teaching staff and 40% police officers, at the end of 2016. Doctor of Laws Marko Viitanen has been the director since October 2016 The organization of the academy is divided vertically into seven competency areas under the director as of 2017:
- General Skills
- Special Skills
- Operational Skills
- Police Dog Operations
- Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI)
- Student Services
- Administration
The 21 hectare campus of the Police University College is located in the Hervanta suburb, eight kilometres from the centre of Tampere. Besides teaching, sports and dormitory facilities, the campus contains a simulation training city and a driver training track. Two separate installations, the police dog training centre in Hämeenlinna and the driver training centre in Pieksämäki, are also a part of the academy’s structure.