From field commander to investigation group leader

Detective senior sergeant Petri Hänninen

Central Finland Police Department, Jyväskylä

I’m a 50-year-old detective senior sergeant from Jyväskylä and currently investigation group leader, even though based on my previous career, many people are probably wondering about my current job description. Wasn't Petri supposed to be a "field man" after all?

I graduated as a police officer in 1999. I came to Jyväskylä to work in control and response duties, i.e. driving a patrol car to perform emergency response duties. This felt exactly why I had applied to what was then the Police Academy, after having first spent 18 months studying computer science at Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.

I ended up doing field work for 25 years, so I got to do quite a variety of jobs and spent a considerable number of nights on duty. I completed the senior officer course in 2006 and started working as a sergeant in 2009. In addition to my own duties, I worked as a field training officer in the use of force, a field training officer in leadership, and a group leader for challenging situations. When you add to this my work as a field group leader and field commander, I can honestly say that I gained a very diverse range of experience in control and emergency response operations.

On to new challenges despite the high threshold

Since the retirement age had been rising steadily, however, I had made up my mind that I was not going to do field work until retirement. I decided that it would be more sensible for me to seek new challenges in criminal investigation. However, the threshold for making the transition was quite high since it had been so long since my previous experience in investigation, which was a six-month job rotation back in 2001. Then an opportunity arose for me to go on a tour of duty of the general police unit in Keuruu in 2024, where my duties included both field and investigative work, with a greater emphasis on investigation. There, I gained a year's worth of knowledge and experience in investigative work. After that, I applied for a temporary position as investigation team leader in Jyväskylä.

I was picked for the position at the end of January this year. When the job concerned became available as a permanent position, I applied for it, was selected and became a permanent detective senior sergeant from 1 September this year. So, here’s a shout-out to everyone who has patiently guided me through the ins and outs of investigation and made this transfer from the field to investigation possible.

With this article, I would like to remind both those who are newly interested in police work and those who have already worked in the organisation for a long time that such transfers are possible if you put in a little effort and challenge yourself to learn new things.