Vesa Jauhiainen, the Police Officer of the Year, has given a face to the police in the suburbs of Turku

Senior Constable Vesa Jauhiainen from the Southwest Finland Police Department has been voted the Police Officer of the Year 2019. Jauhiainen has been working as a field officer in various tasks for almost 40 years. Currently, he works in the field surveillance squad of the Turku Police Headquarters, focusing on young people under the age of 18.

This year, in the selection of the Police Officer of the Year emphasis was laid on the foundations of all police work, monitoring and emergency response operations. The uniformed police officers working in monitoring and emergency duties are the first ones to reach the site when something happens.

Even the most challenging emergency duties in surveillance and field operations are part of Jauhiainen’s everyday work. He has also been involved in Jouha activities (crowd control), acted as use of force instructor and motorcycle police officer, and operated in the Rad working group tackling the issue of radicalisation.

Jauhiainen has also been working for many years as the regional police officer specifically assigned to the Varissuo suburb in Turku particularly among young people, collaborating with different authorities, inhabitants of the area and the third sector.

Suburbs need a police officer with a face

According to the grounds for Jauhiainen’s selection, he has been serving as a police officer in surveillance and field operations in an exemplary manner for several years. For his younger colleagues, Jauhiainen is an excellent example of a person who continues his meritorious and active work career even after official retirement age as a police officer enthusiastic about his work every single day.

According to those who chose the winner, he is exactly the kind of policeman with a face whose presence is needed on site in the challenging and multidimensional modern society.

“Jauhiainen has been meritoriously building an image of Finland as a democratic and equal society and shown with his own actions, for example, to many inhabitants with a foreign background that in Finland police is honest and reliable, thus contributing to how police is regarded in the suburbs of Turku,” the grounds for his nomination state.

Lazy student

The factors that affected Jauhiainen’s career choice were the interesting job and the relatively short studies.

“I’ve never been much of a student. When I was in the army, my mother told me that the application period to the Police College was open. She then put all the necessary documents together, and I managed to send the application to the Police College,” Jauhiainen describes.

For him, the job as a police officer has become a vocation. 62-year-old Jauhiainen could have retired as long as four years ago, but his enthusiasm still helps him carry on in his work.

“This is a very rewarding job, where you can see the impact of what you’re doing. This work really has a purpose,” Jauhiainen says, referring particularly to the community police work in the suburbs.

From a rowing coach and Scout troop leader to a police officer working with young people

After the Police College, Jauhiainen worked as a “rank-and-file police officer” in Turku for about four years. After that, he was persuaded to become a police officer focusing on young people, because as a rowing coach and Scout troop leader he had a lot of experience of interacting with the youth.

After an organisational reform, the youth police operations were terminated in 1994, after which Jauhiainen transferred to traditional emergency tasks. His duties with young people still continued alongside the other tasks.

Inhabitants of Varissuo want to keep their own police officer

When the construction of the Varissuo suburb in Turku began, the command of the Turku Police Department decided to place two neighbourhood police officers there in the late 70s. At best, there were three of them.

The positions were terminated in 2005, at which point a distinguished delegation from Varissuo came to visit the police headquarters: the operation must continue. The pressure worked, and the police department decided to appoint a regional police officer specifically to the suburb.

The task was assigned to Jauhiainen, known for getting along well with young people. The work still continues, even though a few years ago the intention was to cut back these operations. The active residents of the area took action again: they invited the commanding officer to a meeting with the community working group, and the plans to reduce the operations were dropped.

Since the very beginning of his career, Jauhiainen has also been an advocate of preventive police work.

“The key idea of police work in Varissuo is that the police officers working there have a face. The police officer is the same person the young person encounters in various phases of his or her life. That person feels familiar and safe. The young people know that I know. Hardly any matters remain secret. The control of the close circle is maintained,” Jauhiainen says.

Currently, there are three regional police officers working in Turku. In addition to Varissuo, the service is provided in Perno-Pansio and Halinen. Two police officers have been hired to the task on a fixed-term basis. Being active, they have made themselves known in their designated areas.

Regional police work in close collaboration with the community

According to Jauhiainen, the regional police work in close collaboration with other actors in the area.

In Varissuo, they consider questions related to the safety of the area and establish an overall picture of the youths and children who cause concern in regular joint meetings between authorities. In addition to the regional police, these meetings are attended by the social and health services, youth services, housing counsellor and representatives of the Teacher Training School and Varissuo school.

“The more extensive conclave in the area are the meetings of the Varissuo-Lauste-Vaala community working group with representation of not only the sectors above but also organisations and companies operating in the area, and local residents,” Jauhiainen says.

Furthermore, Jauhiainen makes rounds in the shopping centres and schools in the area, talking with young people. Teachers and youth workers can also contact Jauhiainen directly if they have concerns about a particular youth.

There are approximately 9,000 inhabitants in Varissuo, about half of whom come from a foreign background. In young age groups, the share of foreign-language speakers is 70 per cent. This affects Jauhiainen’s work, since particularly adults with a foreign background have very different conceptions of the police.

“Young people with a foreign background respect older people, so in this work, being over 60 years old and having a rugged countenance is clearly an asset,” Jauhiainen says.

Differing situations challenge the police officer’s professional competence

A police officer working on the field lands increasingly often in challenging and surprising situations. Encountering violence has become an everyday part of police work.

“In police work, you should never get stuck in a rut. A familiar customer may become a security risk, when he or she has become mentally unbalanced or gone into a psychotic state due to substance abuse. In such a case, the person may behave quite differently from the way he or she did before. The police must remain suitably alert and keep the tactical and use of force lessons clearly in mind, not forgetting the use of common sense, of course. The variety of situations you encounter challenges the police officer’s professional competence,” the Police Officer of the Year says.

44. Police Officer of the Year

The Police Officer of the Year was now selected for the 44th time. The recipient is decided by JCI Helsinki, the Finnish Police Federation and the National Police Board. The recipient of the title was published at the House of Nobility in Helsinki on 11 October 2019.

For pictures of the Police Officer of the Year, please visit the website of the Finnish Police Federation at http://www.spjl.fi/viestinta/mediapankki/kuvapankki