History of police training

The Finnish police training tradition goes back more than one hundred years. In 1918, a temporary police academy was established in the Helsinki Police Department. Its task was to train police officers for the whole country. The academy opened in the center of Helsinki but was moved to Suomenlinna fortress in the following summer.

Later, police officers were trained in the National Traffic Police’s recruit training courses, provincial training courses and at the Police Academy in Espoo and the course center in Helsinki.

Teaching on the training course for traffic police recruits in the 1950s.

In Tampere, the history of police training begins in 1974 when the Police Course Center was established in the city under the Police Academy. Teaching took place on Pohjolankatu on the outskirts of downtown Tampere, and student dormitories were located in Hervanta. In 1986, the school became an independent unit, the National Police School. In 1993, the National Police School’s training was relocated to Hervanta alongside the dormitories, in the same place where the current educational institution is located.

Driving practice at the National Police School in the 1980s.

Moving the entire degree education to Tampere

Police have been trained at bachelor level in Finland since 1998. At this time, the Police Academy in Espoo was turned into the Police College of Finland, and the commanding officer degree taught there became a bachelor’s degree.

Ten years later in 2008, the Police College in Finland located in Espoo and the National Police School in Tampere were combined into one educational institution. The new institution, called the Police University College, was located in Tampere. The merger meant that the entirety of the police’s degree education and research was now centered in Tampere.

In 2014, the police’s degree education was modernized by bringing basic police education up to a bachelor's degree level. At the same time, the higher qualification, or commanding officer degree, became a master’s degree.

A history book provides perspectives on training

During the one hundredth anniversary year of police training (2018), the history book Muodollisesti pätevä? Poliisikoulutus itsenäisessä Suomessa (Formally Qualified? Police training in Finland since independence) was published.

It is a history study focused on police training in Finland from its infancy to the present day. The research done by historians casts a new perspective on the history of police training as part of a changing society.

Download the history book Muodollisesti pätevä? Poliisikoulutus itsenäisessä Suomessa through Theseus service (only available in Finnish)

Read more on the history of police training on the Police Museum’s website