This article explores interview data taken from a study of Norwegian police training, and discusses whether police education is perceived as providing a relevant and sufficient platform for performing police work. Since the police have monopoly status when it comes to the general use of physical force, the police practice appears boundless. How should police education be directed towards covering such a diverse and complex role? The article will demonstrate how differently police officers assess police education. The interview data will display both ideological differences with regard to how policing is viewed as well as highly different expectations of police education. There is a contradiction in the fact that the police districts expect a finished product, in terms of professional autonomous police officers from the Police College, but the Police College will hardly be able to meet such an expectation. Through the notion of “practice theory” the article will challenge the traditional distinction between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ by conceptualizing the relationship between education and practice.

This paper sets out to describe and explore experiences gained in the course of ten years with a non-blaming, nonadversarial learning methodology, as applied in the context of the policing of major events, where at the request of a host, peers gather data during events as they occur and a one-sided focus on errors is avoided. This peer review methodology appears to contribute to organisational learning in three different ways: hosts receive informed and constructive feedback, reviewers gain additional experience and insights and the exchanges taking place in the course of or following the reviews (e.g. in seminars) contribute to the identification of good practices and development of professional norms. Experiences show that the interactions taking place between participants also facilitate mutual understanding and cooperation. Interestingly, quite apart from the products obtained through the methodology, the peer review process itself proved to foster reflection and learning.

This paper discusses the findings of a case study concerning a rarely investigated learning process in a police supervisor course (PSC) in Sweden. The paper argues that the educational design of reflective activities stimulates the course participants’ self-awareness and professional development in their new tasks as supervisors. By using written course evaluations and longitudinal focus group interviews, the study facilitates the identification and articulation of the supervisors’ learning processes during the PSC course. Results of the study emphasise the importance of well-educated supervisors to empowering the learning process of the police probationers creating sustainable professionals in a complex environment. The findings are thematised in three sections: Elucidating the Context, Changing Perspectives and Considering Consciously, which can be viewed as a general model for explaining similar learning processes in other occupations.

Even though police organizations are increasingly making use of technology as part of the shift towards intelligence-led policing (ILP), the use of this technology in practice remains an understudied subject. This article aims to shed some light on the practical use of technology in the context of immigration control by making use of over 800 hours of observation and 13 focus groups with officers of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (RNM), which is responsible for migration and border controls in the Netherlands. By applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to the case study, this article will contribute to understanding which factors explain why technology is accepted, and therefore used, by RNM officers. It also offers a critical assessment of the TAM model in the light of immigration and border control. The results show that the factors perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, quality of information and timeliness of information that are part of the TAM for law enforcement officers are verified. This case study also calls for an expansion of the model to include ‘transparency’ as a critical factor.