Individuella arbetsprestationer i uniformerat polisarbete

The report consists of an empirical study of uniformed police officers’ productivity.About 120 officers fulfilling ordinary uniformed police service have beenstudied through participant observation and interviews. Besides that, archivaldata on different types of interventions the officers have taken initiative to carryout, has been collected. To study the quantitative dimension of productivity, differencesin the production of interventions by own initiative have been analyzed.The result shows that the level of activity differs markedly, with a small group ofvery high producing officers that account for a considerable proportion of the totalnumber of interventions. On the other side, there is a group of passive officerswith low production. In general, police officers with shorter time in service havehigher production than officers with longer. To deal with the issue of qualitativeaspects of police work, the officers were, with use of the collected information,divided into different groups according to the extent they lived up to differentlevels of requirements. To pass the criterions for level I, the officers must treatpersons they interact with in a proper manner. They must also solve and reporttasks they were given in an acceptable way. To pass the requirements for level II,the officers must also take own initiatives making interventions to a passable extent.In the highest level, level III, the officers must also take care of situations ina problem-solving way; a working style that takes both experience and highcompetence. A little more than ten percent of the officers did not make the lowestlevel, and were categorized as unacceptable. About 40 percent passed the criterionsfor level I, a similar proportion level II, but only five percent passed therequirements for level III. Officers belonging to this group were characterized byrelative long time in service, they were highly motivated, had strong sense of integrityand were in good physical shape. For more officers to reach the highestlevel, different factors affecting motivation must be changed. What is consideredmost de-motivating varies. Irrational systems of filing reports, too little feedback,leaders not in touch with officers in the field, not relevant follow up systems,lack of opportunities for personal development and lack of further educationare common themes when police officers themselves describes what is consideredto be most frustrating. Another important factor is the follow-up systemsthat are used by the police. It focuses on simple measurable goals that the officersare supposed to fulfil. Experience shows, however, that such systems maybe counter productive, where the goal becomes to fulfil the goal and not what thegoal is supposed to measure. Additionally, it does not give any information aboutthe quality of the work. To improve the results the police organization must tryto correct or lessen the influence of these factors