Abstract:

The Norwegian Police University College (NPUC) offers a three year bachelor degree in policing and master degrees within police science and investigation as well as a high number of post-graduate courses within various fields. NPUC is governed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice. The two authorities have different focus and priorities. In this study, we explore what kind of challenges police educators and their leaders face when trying to meet new demands in educating police officers. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews at the Department of post-graduate studies at NPUC with police educators, both police practitioners and civilian academics, and their nearest leaders. The data was collected during the Covid-19 pandemic, at a time when the police education had to be digitalized and NPUC was transforming into a hybrid organization. Two theoretical lenses were used in the analyses. Based upon Hirschman`s (1970) work, the first theoretical lens was related to how employees responded and coped with challenges in work-life. That is, whether employees responded with exit (employees consider leaving the organization), voice (employees voice their concerns or dissatisfaction to management or others), loyalty (employees stay with the organization and wait for better times), neglect (employees implicitly accept that things are not going to change and therefore put less effort into the job), expedience (employees work to achieve the organization’s goals by bending norms and rules), and edgework (employees voluntarily put themselves at risk). Results indicated that the two most dominant responses among police educators and leaders were voice and expedience. Employees with an operational police background had a clear tendency to respond with expedience. They also tended to respond with edgework, as in taking risks. Civilian employees revealed less of these two responses. Both groups revealed a low frequency of exit and neglect responses. The second theoretical lens was inspired by Lipskys (2010) street level bureaucrats which all occupational groups at NPUC can be characterized as when working front line with students. The results revealed that in their work with students, police educators needed to solve complex problems, and to achieve ambitious political goals with limited resources within the police educational context. Collaborating on this task involved the police educators exercising discretion and prioritizing according to their professional viewpoints, while the leaders found functional ways to govern them and control their work performance. Furthermore, the results showed that the police educators in a hybrid situation who are recruited from outside, had limited professional support and lacked specific police expertise. As a result of this, they felt they had the least power in the meeting with management's priorities and in interprofessional collaboration. In addition, one type of challenge was found to run along the vertical axis of the organization - that is, the relationship between management and subordinates - and was about how management prioritizes police operational interests over facilitating higher education. Finally, it can be stated from the present study that in the end it came down to a question for the police educators of staying loyal but at the same time bending the rules. However, such a situation can easily give rise to tensions between police educators and leaders at NPUC.

Keywords:

Post-graduate education, educators responses, educational collaboration, management and professional logic, street level bureaucrats.