NCJ Number
218545
Journal
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2007 Pages: 14-35
Date Published
2007
Length
22 pages
Annotation
Finnish police cadets (n=45) who had just graduated from the police academy were surveyed about their attitudes toward contact with African immigrants in Finland.
Abstract
The findings indicate that Finnish police cadets have had only a job-related contact with African immigrants during their in-training period. Only 4.4 percent of the cadets reported any social contacts with African immigrants outside of their police work. Findings show that 91.2 percent of the cadets believed that African immigrants were justified in complaining of police bias against them. Positive attitudes toward African immigrants were expressed by 57.8 percent of the police cadets, and 17.8 percent had negative attitudes toward African immigrants; 24.4 percent expressed no opinion about their attitudes toward African immigrants. The findings suggest that police should receive more multicultural training. Further, more African immigrants should be recruited for police work. More social interactions between police cadets and African immigrants should be encouraged, particularly in Turku, a jurisdiction with a relatively high percentage of African immigrants. The questionnaire was administered to two classes at the police academy 1 day before their graduation. The experimental group consisted of 24 cadets who received a brief presentation on how policing evolved after colonialism in African countries, followed by the administration of the questionnaire. The control group consisted of 23 cadets who completed the questionnaire before a similar brief presentation. The questionnaire was administered January 28-29, 2003. 1 figure, 3 tables, and 37 references