Områdespoliser i utsatta områden : Områdespolisers upplevelser i sitt uppdrag

Sammanfattning: This qualitative research study examines community police officers (CPO) in communities that are classified as socially vulnerable areas according to the police authority. The research on community policing in Sweden in these areas is still generally underdeveloped and the purpose of this study is to fill a part of that knowledge gap. This study focuses on local crime preventive work as a community police officer that especially has this mandate in preventive work. The authors have made interviews with police officers from three areas with similar problems. 2015 made the police authorities in Sweden the most extensive reorganization ever made. One of the main ideas was to give the 95 local police authorities more mandate over their own district and their own local problems. In this study, we understand that it is not completed as the management had as a main target. In this study our goal was to bring some clearance about the community police officers feeling about there´s own work situation and role. In the study when the authors did the interviews, we got information from the respondents that it depended on who the different local police management use the community police officer’s duty. In one local police area the management had an idea that everybody who had worked as a police officer for three years got the label as a community police officer even if its main work wasn´t in the crime prevention area. The conclusion in this study is that it needs more commitment for the local problems and more support to the community police officers that works in these vulnerable areas for a long time for the target to reduce the crime and increase the safety for the citizens.