Managing Two Worlds. Role-Exit Processes among Swedish Police Officers with PhDs

Given the international trend in police education in recent decades towards a more academic focus, the starting point for this article was the fact that only a few police officers with a PhD stay on in the Swedish police organisation. Thus the objective of the study was to investigate the role exit processes of police officers with a PhD, with special emphasis on organisational opportunities and obstacles in the relationship between higher education and the police organisation as a pre-profession. This relationship has been described as a difficult combination involving ‘two-world thinking’. Police officers with a PhD were interviewed about their experiences from research training and careers after dissertation. Inspired by the role exit model developed by Ebaugh, the study identified a role exit process that was caused by the inability of the police organisation to manage and integrate academic competence inside the organisation. At the same time, the graduate police officers discovered an alternative labour market outside the police profession, often in police education itself, which alleviated their professional phantom pain. The involuntary nature of the role exit, given the graduates’ wish to remain relevant in the police organisation, prolonged a process that was emotionally painful to them.