The Policeman as a Worker - or Not? International Impulses and National Developments within the Swedish Police, ca 1850-1940

The Policeman as a Worker - or Not? International Impulses and National Developments within the Swedish Police, ca 1850-1940 A modern type of police organization was introduced in Sweden after the revolutionary movement of 1848. As always this was done with a keen eye on the development in the rest of Europe, and the new type of police organization was based on the most modern af all - the London Metropolitan Police. In this text I propose to discuss some social and cultural aspects of the policemens working conditions within this modernizing police organization i the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Sweden. It will take into account such thing as the social background of the policemen and its crusial significance in the development of the police and its social, cultural and political outlook. It is possible to discern a gradual shift from the mid nineteenth century where the international impulses mainly came from a Great Britain with its police tradition until the early twentieth century when instead it mainly came from the Germany and its more militaristic continantal police tradition. In the early years most policemen came from working class background, while in the late years, due to a direct strategy from the authorities, they mainly came from a rural background and almost all with training as non commissioned officers in the military service. This in turn led to increasing conflicts within the police ranks, with its most outspoken years of internal hostilities in the first two decades of the twentieth century