Developing police activities through scientific research

Researcher, Project Manager Pirjo Jukarainen
Police University College
PhD, Administrative Science

I originally studied tourism before continuing to study regional studies at a university. There I was particularly interested in EU affairs, international aspects and youth research. Maybe a little unexpectedly, I ended up in a career as a researcher. I worked at the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Tampere, until in 2013 I got a job in a research project at the Police University College related to knowledge-led crime prevention. My initial position at the Police University College was only a one-year project, but after that I got involved in new research projects, and finally I was elected to a permanent position. It is commonplace in the academic world that financing needs to be applied for separately in research projects and that researchers’ work is fixed-term work. My current job is actually the first permanent job of my career.

What I particularly like about my work at the Police University College is that I can do applied and practical research. The work is not just about writing scientific articles or working alone, but in projects I and my team develop together new ways of working, for example. I feel that I am doing meaningful work that helps to develop the activities of the Finnish police even further. I have been involved in many different research and development projects, covering themes such as corruption and money laundering, organised crime, preparing for serious incidents, community policing and communications. At the moment, I am working as the project manager in the Gaming police project, where we are developing new multi-professional efforts. The goal is to prevent, detect and combat harmful activities and crime against children and young people in the digital gaming world.

At the Police University College, I have also been able to make use of my studies in mediation and conflict resolution, which I completed in Germany and the United Kingdom. Among other things, I was involved in devising a course in which police officers learn to act in challenging interaction situations. It may be difficult to establish contact with the client for reasons such as the client’s mental health problems, intellectual disability or memory disorder.

Couple of hundred scientific publications

My work days and weeks vary depending on the research project at hand and its phase. As the project manager, my tasks include preparing and monitoring the budget, arranging meetings with the team and partners, planning the division of work and time management, and communicating with stakeholders. There can also be occasional business trips abroad, when we learn about the operating procedures of the police in other countries. In the role of a researcher, my tasks may include issues such as reading background materials, brainstorming and writing. Of course, the work of a researcher includes writing of scientific and other publications, and my name can probably be found on the title page or author list of a couple of hundred publications. 

Highlights of my work have included moments when we have succeeded in raising phenomena into social discussion through research. Perhaps the greatest thing in my career so far, however, has been that in the Gaming police project, we are doing something completely new that has not been done in Finland before: the police are involved in the virtual game world “patrolling” among children and young people.