Crime Prevention in Police Education

4.1 Police students and their perceptions of crime prevention

In this sub-section, previous studies about police students’ perception of crime prevention are described. Relevant criteria for inclusion are that the studies need to outline how police students perceive crime prevention or how police students perceive the police occupation. A study of Canadian police students found that 84% of the respondents thought that the community policing method of crime prevention was a good approach for ensuring security (Alain & Baril, 2005). In another study, in English and Welsh contexts, new police constables were asked about their experiences following an educational program focused on evidence-based policing (Rogers et al., 2022). Over half of the respondents reported that it had assisted their understanding of the approach, and almost two-thirds said that they applied the approach in their everyday activities. In addition, a study of Chinese police students on police officers’ role in society found that most (82%) perceived enforcing the law as the most important responsibility, but more than 90% regarded preventive patrol as an important task (Sun et al., 2009). However, police students in Sweden and Norway perceived police work as practical, action-filled, and operational rather than academic and intelligence-led (Lander, 2013; Winnæss, 2023). During their police training, the students preferred operational and practical activities over theoretical and academic education (Winnæss, 2023). Similar results were found by Hansson (2014), who reported that police students found more meaning in concrete learning activities that were connected to their future profession. Furthermore, during their training, police students developed a fondness for the excitement of the job, which was their primary motivation for becoming a police officer (Lauritz, 2009). Taken together, this indicates that crime prevention work may be comparatively lower valued among police students in Nordic countries. Nonetheless, these studies have not focused on how police students perceive crime prevention, especially not in relation to other forms of policing, which hence needs further exploration.

4.2 Changes of perceptions during education

Studies have shown that police students’ perceptions and attitudes change during their education (Inzunza & Wikström, 2020; Lauritz, 2009), and when they join a force as qualified officers (Alain & Baril, 2005; Lauritz, 2009; Petersson, 2015; White et al., 2010). Differences in perceptions and attitudes between police students and police officers have also been detected (Fekjær et al., 2014). The influence of police occupational culture on students during their education may make significant contributions to such changes (e.g., Macvean & Cox, 2012). For example, Cox and Kriby (2018) and Winnæss (2023) found that in early stages of their education police students started to identify as police officers and changed their ways of thinking and acting, with strong influences of teachers who were police officers and told anecdotes about police work. Thus, without judging whether this is good or bad, their education may change police students’ attitudes toward police work.

4.3 Knowledge and how it influences perceptions of crime prevention

As shown above, students’ perceptions may change during the course of their education. In addition to cultural effects this may be partly because information and knowledge can influence people’s attitudes and opinions (e.g., Shiina et al., 2017; Sohr-Preston, 2015). For example, actively learning about the criminal justice system leads to more confidence and satisfaction in the system (Tanasichuk & Wormith, 2012). Further, Cheurprakobkit (2002) found that police officers who have been trained in community policing agreed to a larger extent with the idea of it. Thus, police students’ perception of crime prevention may be influenced by their knowledge of it, either positively (as knowledge of crime prevention may strengthen recognition of its benefits and strengths) or negatively (if it strengthens perceptions that crime prevention is difficult, useless, or outside the scope of police work). Some students may also absorb information better than others during their education. Thus, the possibilities that education and knowledge of crime prevention may affect students’ perceptions of it clearly warrant attention, but to my knowledge no studies have explored the relationships involved.

To summarize, crime prevention is not being conducted as fully or effectively as intended by police management, possibly because the police lack knowledge of crime prevention and/or the police culture diminishes its perceived importance. However, police students’ perceptions of their knowledge of crime prevention in relation to other police tasks are unknown (both generally and in Sweden specifically). If police managers highlight crime prevention as an important topic, police education (which provides the foundations for students’ future police work) should promote and provide students good knowledge of it. Conversely, exposure to a police culture that includes perceptions of crime prevention as being less “real police work” than other tasks during their education could undermine positive attitudes toward it. Given the limited understanding of police students’ perceptions and knowledge of crime prevention, this study adopts an exploratory approach, offering descriptive insights into the role of crime prevention in police education. The exploration of these relationships may offer a key piece of the puzzle in addressing the challenges police organizations face in implementing crime prevention as a routine part of their work.

5.1 Material

To address this study’s research questions a quantitative method was used. A digital survey was designed to capture the police students’ perceptions of crime prevention and their education. I developed the questionnaire based on previous research on police officers’ perceptions of policing and crime prevention, previous organizational theory, and my own experience of the police organization. Some of the included questions were inspired by, and based on, previous questionnaires given to police officers and students (Andersen, 2006; Lum & Stoltz, 2018; Oslo Metropolitan University [Oslomet], 2022; Pew Research Center, 2016). The questionnaire applied here was designed to focus not only on crime prevention but also on other areas of policing: service, traffic safety, investigative work, and intervention work. The intention was to design a questionnaire that the respondents would see as neutral in terms of mentioned tasks of police work. Hence, crime prevention and the other areas of policing were not further defined for the participants. It was assumed that the police students were aware of how the police defined crime prevention and other police tasks. The questions were grouped into two sub-categories, concerning perceptions of policing and experience of police education. In total, the survey included 35 main questions, of which several had sub-questions. In the process of constructing the questionnaire I received advice regarding content by police instructors and police officers, and regarding the design by academic colleagues, some of whom had more than 25 years’ experience of designing survey questions. After this, the questionnaire was tested and assessed by four police instructors, and words and expressions were slightly modified based on their experience of it.

5.2 Procedure

The questionnaire was distributed to police students between September 2022 and April 2023 through the five higher education departments that provide police education programs in Sweden (located in Borås, Malmö, Stockholm, Växjö, and Umeå). Four of the departments sent out information about the questionnaire through their learning platforms and the other department sent out information via the student association’s Facebook group. The information covered the study’s aims and ethical aspects, including the voluntary nature of participation and how the data would be managed. The information also included a short video message, in which the responsible researcher introduced the study, and a link to the digital questionnaire. After a few weeks, the students were reminded about the study and given a new opportunity to respond. It was emphasized that the reminder was sent out to all students because the answers were anonymous, so the researcher did not know who had answered the questionnaire. Depending on the collaboration of the education site, between one and four reminders were sent out. To further improve the response rate, the police student associations were contacted and asked to inform their members about the study. One of the associations spread information about the study to their members. Due to the specifics of the data collection process, the data were carefully checked that they did not include duplicate respondents.²

5.3 Participants

The study included 303 police students in total, from all five police education departments in Sweden (approximate response rate of 9%), with demographic characteristics summarized in Table 1.

The median age of the participants was 30 years, which might be a little older than that of participants in a study by Sundström and Wolming (2014) of first-semester police students, whose ages ranged between 20 and 41 years. According to Plikt- och prövningsverket (2022), 63% (1200 of 1900) of students who enrolled in police education in 2021 were men, which is similar to the proportion of men in this sample. The proportion of participants who had two non-Swedish parents was also similar to the proportion of police officers (4%) who were reportedly born outside Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån, 2017). These statistics indicate that the sample in this study did not substantially differ demographically from the total Swedish police student population.

5.4 Variables

A description of the variables used to address the research questions in this study is found in Table 2.

All variables measured using a Likert scale (1–5) were transformed to a 0–100 equidistant scale to enhance the interpretability of the results. The 0–100 scale offers a familiar and intuitive visualization, where the values more clearly illustrate the similarities and differences in perceptions of various work assignments. For instance, a response coded as 0 indicates that the student did not agree with the statement, perceived the mentioned work task as having low status, or did not consider it to be real police work. Conversely, a response coded as 100 indicates the opposite, such as full agreement with the statement. Importantly, regardless of the scale used, the interpretations and conclusions remain consistent.

5.5 Analysis

Some participants did not provide responses to all of the items, and the number of valid respondents in the analyses varied between 261 and 303. The first research question, regarding police students’ perceptions of their training and education in crime prevention relative to other forms of policing, was addressed by analyzing responses to items opportunities to practice, skill and ability to perform, and focus in education (variable a, b, and c). This provided indications of their views of the opportunities provided to learn about and practice crime prevention, the degree that it fostered relevant skills, and its prioritization in the education program.

The second research question, regarding police students’ perceptions of crime prevention relative to other forms of policing, was addressed by analyzing responses to the items most important police work, ability to prevent, prevention is more important than punishing, expectations of police role, preferred future work tasks, status of work tasks, and “real police work” (variable d, e, f, g, h, i, and j). Variable j was utilized to measure what police students consider to be “real police work.” The concept of “real police work” is well-established in the police literature (see e.g., Granér, 2004; Herbert, 2001) and also appears in quotes from police officers describing their duties (Domínguez Ruiz et al., 2024; Tanner & Meyer, 2015; Wood et al., 2014). To obtain an overview of the police students’ perceptions of the police’s most important work, variable d was recoded into an “importance ranking” scale. Each respondent’s answers regarding the most important, second most important, and third most important working task of the police were coded as: most important=100, second most important=67, and third most important=33. The other, fourth most important (or least important) of the four mentioned tasks was coded 0. Following this strategy, four new variables were created to calculate arithmetic mean values. For example, if all respondents thought that intervening when a crime is committed is the most important task, the mean value for this variable would be 100. Similarly, if all respondents thought that arresting criminals was the least important task (the fourth, missing category) the mean value would be 0. Hence, these four recoded variables provide indications of the respondents’ views of the relative importance of each of the working tasks.

The third research question, regarding students’ perceptions of crime prevention at the beginning and end of their education, was addressed by analyzing responses to items opportunities to practice, most important police work, the ability to prevent, prevention is more important than punishing, status of work tasks, and “real police work” (variable a, d, e, f, i, and j). Only participants in semesters 1 and 4 of their education were included in this analysis to explore possible differences in their perceptions of crime prevention. Responses of between 60 and 91 students in each of these groups were included in this analysis.

The fourth research question – “Does knowledge of crime prevention impact police students’ perception of crime prevention?” – was addressed by analyzing responses to items most important police work, the ability to prevent, prevention is more important than punishing, the status of work tasks, “real police work”, knowledge of POP, and knowledge in hot-spot policing (variable d, e, f, i, j, k, and l). Items k and l were used to assess the students’ knowledge of POP and hot-spot policing by summing the numbers of correct indications of whether statements were wrong or correct. Students who provided correct responses for all statements were seen as having high knowledge and those who provided one or more wrong responses (or no response) were seen as having less knowledge. This binary division was based on the assumption that if students have basic knowledge of these policing methods they should be able to respond correctly to all the statements easily. This binary classification may introduce bias in identifying differences between high and less knowledge levels. The quantitative analysis of the relationship between students’ knowledge and perceptions of crime prevention was limited to the 136 students who reported prior experience with problem-oriented policing (POP) and hot-spot policing. Within this subset, between 53 and 83 students were included in each group (high knowledge and less knowledge). The relatively small number of students with experience in POP and hot-spot policing constrained the analytical possibilities. While various analytical methods were considered, this classification was selected due to its greatest potential for detecting differences.

To detect significant differences between perceptions of police students, according to the mentioned scales or mean values, 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to determine likely ranges of true boundaries of the scales and mean values. The chi-square test (χ²) was then used to explore whether observed differences between groups’ responses, as dependent categorical variables, were significant or not at the 5% probability level.

5.6 Ethical aspects

According to the Swedish Ethic Review Authority, this study did not require approval under terms of the Swedish Ethical Review Act (2003:460) since it did not involve any intervention on the participants or collection of any personally sensitive information. However, common ethical guidelines, as described by European Commission (2010), were followed throughout the study, including informing the participants about the aims of the study, that their participation was entirely voluntary, and that they could not be identified in the published results.

6.1 Training and education in crime prevention

Police education is predominantly focused on intervention work, according to almost two-thirds of the students. A significantly higher proportion (63%) indicated that their police education had focused most on intervention work than the proportion (15%) who indicated that it had focused most on crime prevention work (χ²[1, n = 236] = 90.3, p < 0.001). As shown in Table 3, students perceived that they were given fewer opportunities to practice crime prevention work in relation to other police work assignments. Crime prevention work together with responding to crime victims, traffic safety, and turning sciences into policing were the subjects students perceived they were given the fewest opportunities to practice.

Conversely, they indicated that they were given more opportunities to practice more reactive police work such as applying relevant law, tactics and methods used in police conflict management, and dealing with weapons.

A similar pattern was found in expressed perceptions of their skills and abilities (Table 4). They indicated that they had the least skills and abilities in crime prevention, science-based policing, and traffic safety work, with mean values of about 50, while for most of the other tasks mean values were considerably higher (mostly in the 65 to 70 range).

It can reasonably be assumed that the perceived opportunity to practice a work assignment is correlated to the skill and ability perceived as necessary to perform the same assignment. For some work assignments, such as crime prevention, traffic safety, crime investigation, and responding to victims, there was a strong correlation between the opportunity to practice and perceived skill and ability (average correlation = .62, varying from .56 to .71, p < .001). For other work assignments, for example dealing with troublesome persons, communication, and dealing with weapons, there was a weaker correlation between the opportunity to practice and perceived skill and ability (average correlation = .37, varying from .35 to .40, p < .001). It can also be reasonably assumed that there is overlap between the work assignments categorized under “opportunity to practice” and those related to “perceived skill and ability.”

6.2 Status and prioritization of crime prevention

This section describes the students’ perceptions of crime prevention as a police work assignment, relative to other forms of police work. First, however, their expectations of their future assignments are considered. Police work is traditionally seen as either reactive or proactive. Most (73%) of the students expected the police profession to be in line with traditional reactive policing (indicating that they expected police work to be varied, event-driven, and that a major part should be dedicated to handling situations and arresting offenders). In addition, 22% expected it to be in line with proactive policing (indicating that they expected police work to involve building relations and collaborating with other authorities/organizations to create a more secure and safe society). A significantly higher proportion of students expected the police profession to involve reactive work than the proportion of who expected it to focus on proactive policing (χ² [1, n = 287] = 83.71, p < 0.01). A higher proportion (64%) also wanted to work with intervention activities than the proportion (14%) who wanted to work with crime prevention (χ²[1, n = 234] = 98.74, p < 0.01) after they finished their education. Most of the students (95%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that a police officer can prevent crime. Fewer (39%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that it is more important to prevent crime than to punish perpetrators of criminal acts that have already been committed.

Moving away from what police students expect from police work to the police students’ perceptions of crime prevention and “real police work,” most of them expressed perceptions that either preventing crime or intervening when a crime is committed was the most important work assignment for the police (Table 5). As indicated by the mean values, they saw crime investigations, and in particular arresting a suspect, as less important tasks. It is worth emphasizing that there seems to be a clear division in views of crime prevention: about half of the police students ranked it as the most important task, and about a third of them ranked it as the third or fourth most important task. No such variation was detected in views of the relative importance of any other task.

The students also perceived differences in the status of the considered police work assignments within the police organization, as shown in Table 6. They regarded the status of crime prevention work as medium; higher than that of service and traffic safety work but lower than that of intervention and investigation work.

Similar variation was detected in the degrees that students regarded the work assignments as “real police work” (Table 7). While most of the tasks were seen as real police work by the majority of the respondents, socio-administrative tasks such as reporting actions taken and providing assistance to other authorities receive considerably less support. It should be noted that the idea that crime prevention is real police work was shared by most of the students (mean value 80). This is lower than the proportions who regarded crime intervention and maintenance of law and order as real police work (mean values above 90), but higher than proportions for some of the other assignments.

6.3 The Impact of time in education on perceptions of crime prevention

As shown in Table 8, no significant differences were detected between the perceptions of crime prevention of students in semesters 1 and 4.

As shown in Table 9, the overall pattern indicates that students in semester 4 were afforded more opportunities to practice activities related to the learning objectives compared to students in semester 1. Significant changes in associated perceptions were detected for all except four of the considered learning objectives, one of which was the opportunity to engage in crime prevention.

6.4 Effects of knowledge on perceptions of crime prevention

As previously shown, students in the fourth semester did not seem to have different perceptions of crime prevention from students in the first semester. This could have been due to a lack of differences in the students’ knowledge of crime prevention, despite the difference in their time in education. Therefore this possibility was also assessed. The data show that 57% and 61% of the students had respectively encountered POP and hot-spot methods during their education. Of the 136 students who had encountered both methods in their education, 39% indicated high knowledge of the methods, and 61% were regarded as having less knowledge. In addition, students with high knowledge tended to regard crime prevention as having lower status than students with less knowledge (Table 10). No other significant differences in this regard were detected, despite this being the most favorable method for identifying such differences.

7.1 Knowledge and skill in crime prevention

For successful implementation of crime prevention programs in police work, relevant knowledge and skills are clearly key factors (Brå, 2013, 2020; Homel & Homel, 2012). However, the police students participating in this study did not view crime prevention as the most highly prioritized subject in their education, and perceived that they had less skills and ability to engage in crime prevention than in other more practical and reactive police work. This might be explained by the fact that crime prevention is a more academic and theoretical subject than police conflict management and weapons handling. In previous studies, police students have preferred parts of education that are closely connected to their future profession, which is largely understood as operational (Hansson, 2014; Winnæss, 2023). A question one might ask is: Is it the police education that has emphasized the more practical and reactive work at the expense of proactive elements, or is it the students who perceive it that way? According to Winnæss (2023), the ambition of police managers to promote more academic parts of the education program is severely undermined by the police students’ resistance to such topics. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this conclusion, it is nonetheless clear that the understated focus of crime prevention in police education, as rated by the police students in this study, is likely to not facilitate ambitions to implement crime prevention work in their future role as police officers.

7.2 Police culture

A police culture that does not promote crime prevention work may also contribute to deficiencies in implementing crime prevention in police work (Ekbom, 2002). Interpreting the observed perceptions and beliefs expressed by police students through a lens of police culture (see e.g., Bacon, 2022; Prenzler, 1997), it may be suggested that both how police students perceive the predominant assignments in police education and police students’ perceptions of police work assignments are shaped by police culture. Tasks that the participants thought they had the least opportunity to practice and the least skill and ability to engage in are often dismissed as not constituting “real police work”, as is highlighted in police culture literature (Andersson & Tengblad, 2009; Granér, 2004; Herbert, 2001). Similarly, police students’ perceptions of crime prevention reflect the influence of police culture. While they express confidence in the police’s ability to prevent crime, their emphasis often lies on punishing crimes that have already occurred, aligning with the action-oriented and conviction-focused nature of police culture (Andersson & Tengblad, 2009; Granér, 2004). Nevertheless, crime prevention was not seen as the lowest status work task, as both traffic safety and socio-administrative work had lower status, which may also be interpreted as a result of the police culture. This is because such work may be seen as less adventurous or less connected to potential crime scenes than crime prevention, which may still involve some variation and excitement (see e.g., Andersson & Tengblad, 2009; Granér, 2004). It should be noted that the police students did not perceive crime prevention as a completely irrelevant police task, just not as much “real police work” as other tasks.

Using the police culture lens on the results implies that perceptions of crime prevention may hinder the implementation of crime prevention in police officers’ everyday work, because even police students often regard crime prevention as less “real police work” than intervention and maintaining law and order. The police managers in the Nordic countries emphasize the importance of crime prevention (see Ministry of the Interior, 2019; Politiet, 2020; Polisen 2022a), but their ambition may face resistance from the police culture, which does not promote crime prevention. Previous studies have suggested that this culture is developed already during education (Cox & Kriby, 2018; Winnæss, 2023), or is at least present during education, as this study shows. Hence, the gap between the ambition of crime prevention and the results of it might be explained by the culture. A less influential socialization of police culture in education could facilitate the implementation of crime prevention as everyday work. However, the problem with measuring crime prevention (see e.g., Lab, 2020; Maltz, 1975; Sherman et al., 2016) might also be a reason for the problem with fulfilling the ambition. The police might work with crime prevention, but it is not consistently measured and therefore not seen as sufficiently implemented. In the longer term, this may lead to difficulties in motivating police officers to engage in crime prevention if their efforts are not evaluated and recognized (see Johnson, 2011).

One notable aspect of the results of this study is that there seems to be a group of police students who think that crime prevention is a very important assignment for the police. This corroborates suggestions, e.g., by Chan (1996), Granér (2004), Paoline (2003) and Prenzler (1997) that police cultures may be heterogeneous rather than unified. Although the findings can be examined through the lens of police culture, they also suggest that there does not exist a singular police culture. Acknowledging this highlights the possibility of varying subcultures within the educational setting and among police students. Identification of factors that differentiate students who regard crime prevention as a very important assignment for the police from those who do not is beyond the scope of this article, but they certainly warrant future investigation. If there is one subgroup of police students that has adopted a crime prevention-positive police culture, it would be interesting to explore the factors that characterize this subgroup. That may facilitate suggestions on how to limit the crime prevention-negative police culture that hinders the implementation of crime prevention in police daily work.

7.3 Effects of time in education and knowledge on perceptions of crime prevention

This study included students in all four semesters of Swedish police education. As expected, the analysis showed that students in semester 4 indicated that they had been given more opportunities to practice most of the working assignments than students in semester 1. However, perceptions of four work assignments (including crime prevention) did not significantly differ between students in semesters 1 and 4. Implications of this and reasons for it are difficult to interpret. The assignments that the students perceived that they did not have given more opportunities to practice in semester 4 were more theoretical and academic. Winnæss (2023) and Hansson (2014) reported that students preferred more operational learning activities, which might have made the students focus less on the theoretical parts of the education and hence perceive their opportunities to practice it to not increase through the education. Another reason for the lack of significant difference in perceptions of students in semesters 1 and 4 may be that police education includes many topics, so the teaching of some topics is brief. There is also a lot to grasp and understand through education. Thus, the students might forget some of their knowledge of crime prevention by the time of semester 4. However, the overall pattern indicates that students with more time in education have been provided with greater opportunities to practice assignments. Although four items showed non-significant results, the potential for changes in practice opportunities should not be dismissed. The combination of a stringent significance threshold and the limited sample size means that there may have been differences that were not detected.

The exploration of associations between knowledge of crime prevention and perceptions of it showed a tendency for students with high knowledge to perceive crime prevention as having lower status than students with less knowledge. In other respects, students with higher knowledge and lower knowledge, or students in semesters 1 and 4, seemed to have similar perceptions of crime prevention. This might indicate that the perceptions aligned with police culture are not developed through education, rather that it is a perception which is valued during the selection processes for police education, and hence a perception that police students have when entering the education (see TenEyck, 2023³). The results, with no association between time in education and perception, are thus in contrast to findings of Inzunza and Wikström (2020) and Lauritz (2009). This study’s cross-sectional approach and distinct research topic may partly explain the difference in results. Hence, the difference in results might reflect that police students do not change their perception of crime prevention through education, or it might be an effect of the methodology as we are not following the same individuals over time. The rather small battery of questions probing the students’ knowledge may have contributed to this result. However, this strategy was inevitable due to the sparsity of relevant research and validated survey items. I do not think that the items included in the survey were badly designed, but of course, I recognize the possibility that the questionnaire could be improved, and welcome any evaluation of the questions used here.

Finally, a reason that applies to the findings generally, but particularly in comparisons of groups, might be the small sample size. The applied significance threshold was 5%, which can be seen as conservative given the limited sample size.

7.4 Discussion of the methodology

Approximately 3500 students were invited to participate in the study, giving an approximate response rate of 9%. The low response rate is similar to that of other studies of the views of police students and police officers. For example, Rogers et al. (2022) sent out a digital questionnaire to 600 possible police student participants and obtained a response rate of 13.6%. In another study of police staff in the UK, approximately 7% of around 5000 possible participants responded (Palmer et al., 2019). These statistics indicate that a low response rate is likely in surveys of these populations. In addition, survey response rates have declined in recent decades, as shown for example by Kohut et al. (2012). This is generally seen as a problem because it can cause biased results. However, Hellevik (2016) argues that a low response rate does not necessarily mean that results are biased. Instead, he demonstrates that even a survey with a response rate as low as 4% can provide unbiased results. Other studies have also found that a low response rate does not automatically lead to biased results (e.g., Groves, 2006; Groves & Peytcheva, 2008; Kohut et al., 2012). Bias emerges when there are systematic differences between possible respondents who do and do not choose to answer a questionnaire (Hellevik, 2016). Thus, the sample in this study was compared to the target population to evaluate the potential for bias. The data allowed for three socio-demographic comparisons, which revealed no substantial differences. However, it remains uncertain whether the sample deviates from the population in other respects, making this an insufficient measure for identifying potential bias. Additionally, the topics covered by a survey can influence systematic patterns of non-response (Hellevik, 2016), as certain topics may engage some groups more than others, leading to variation in participation and potential bias (Groves & Peytcheva, 2008). In this study, students were not informed that the focus was specifically on crime prevention, and the questions did not emphasize crime prevention more than other policing duties. Furthermore, questions regarding students’ perceptions of their education and future work assignments are likely to be of interest to the entire population of police students, rather than to a specific subgroup. These points suggest that the results obtained from this survey do not deviate severely from Swedish police students’ general perceptions of crime prevention. Nevertheless, a larger unbiased sample would, of course, increase the study’s validity and precision. The low response rate, in combination with the newly and non-validated questionnaire, are of course potential factors contributing to an undoubted degree of uncertainty about the validity of the results in this study. However, this study, despite its limitations, provides a lot of descriptive information regarding police students’ perceptions concerning different tasks of police work. I hope that this study may encourage future research to critically examine the topics included in this study.