Crime Prevention in Police Education

Crime prevention is highly important, but often poorly implemented. This article explores reasons for this by examining the knowledge and perceptions of crime prevention of surveyed Swedish police students (n=303) and whether their education influences their perceptions. The students indicated that they had received opportunities to practice, and acquired skills to engage in, crime prevention, but their education had focused more on other aspects of police work. They also had more polarized attitudes toward crime prevention than other kinds of police work: some regarded it as very important, while others ranked it much lower. Generally, they saw crime prevention as lower status and less as “real police work” than intervention work. Students in their first and last semesters and those with varying levels of knowledge of crime prevention reported similar perceptions of crime prevention. The results illuminate why crime prevention is hard to implement in daily police work.