Poliisin julkinen vastuu. Tutkimus poliisin vastuusta erityisesti legitimiteetin näkökulmasta

Abstract

Perinteisesti poliisin vastuussa on korostunut virkavastuu ja käskynalaisena toimiminen. Lainmukaisuusperiaate ja lojaliteettivelvoite ovat edelleenkin keskeisiä kriteereitä arvioitaessa poliisin vastuuta julkisesti. Poliisin vastuu voidaan kuitenkin ymmärtää huomattavasti laajemmassa merkityksessä. Poliisin vastuun julkisuutta korostava erityispiirre on legitimiteetti, kansalaisten usko siihen, että poliisin toiminta on oikeutettua ja että poliisitoiminnassa noudatetaan hyväksyttävyyden periaatteita. Poliisin kokonaisvastuussa korostuu yksilöllinen, yhteisöllinen ja henkilökohtaisen vastuu.

Olennaista tutkimuksessa on sen selvittäminen, onko vastuulla laajemmassa mielessä merkitystä poliisissa ja voidaanko vastuun kautta saada uutta tietoa poliisista ja poliisitoiminnasta. Tässä tarkoituksessa tutkimuksessa mitattiin poliisin itsensä käsityksiä vastuun perusteista osoittamalla kirjallinen kysely otannalla poliisin henkilöstölle.

Tutkimuksen tuloksena on päädytty viiteen ydinalueeseen, joilla määritellään poliisin julkista vastuuta. Ensimmäiseksi on tarkasteltava poliisin vastuuketjun toimivuuden edellytyksiä. Poliisitoimintaa ohjaavilla politiikkaohjelmilla ja kansalaisten odotuksilla ei katsota olevan riittävää vastaavuutta poliisin käytännön tasolla. Toiseksi on kysyttävä poliisin tulosohjausjärjestelmän mukaisen tulosvastuun merkitystä. Tulosvastuusta ei ole muodostunut merkittävää vastuumuotoa poliisissa. Kolmanneksi on kiinnitettävä huomiota poliisin vastuun toteutumiseen hyveiden kautta. Kuusi keskeistä hyvettä poliisin toiminnassa ovat ammattietiikan noudattaminen, kansalaisten odotusten kunnioittaminen, poliisiorganisaation yhtenäisyyden arvostaminen, työyhteisön arvojen, henkilökohtaisten arvojen ja esimiehen määräysten noudattaminen. Neljänneksi on korostettava professionaalista vastuuta, jota pidetään ensijaisena poliisin kokonaisvastuun toteutumisen kannalta. Tämä tarkoittaa sitä, että poliisihallinto itse nähdään parhaana tahona asettamaan omat tavoitteensa ja tulkitsemaan poliittista tahtoa ja edelleen vastaamaan käytännössä kansalaisten odotuksiin. Viidenneksi huomiota on kiinnitettävä poliisin käytännön roolin ja kansalaisten odotuksiin perustuvan roolin tasapainoon, mikä on olennaisin seikka legitimiteetin näkökulmasta.

Poliisin julkisen vastuun toteutumisessa keskeistä on kansalaisten odotusten kunnioittamisen ja henkilökohtaisten arvojen noudattamisen välisen tasapainon etsintä. Tätä kautta poliisin vastuu toteutuu yhtä lailla poliisiorganisaation sisällä kuin sen ulkopuolellakin.

Vastuun avulla poliisia ja poliisin toimintaa voidaan jäsentää uudella tavalla ja ymmärtää paremmin myös empiirisesti. Tutkimusta voidaan hyödyntää pohdittaessa poliisihallinnon rakenteellista uudistamista ja poliisitoiminnan käytännön kehittämistä. Esimerkiksi poliittisen vastuun kannalta poliisihallinnon uudistamistarvetta voitaisiin pohtia siitä näkökulmasta, kuinka erilaisten politiikkaohjelmien sisältö saataisiin vastaamaan paremmin käytännön poliisitoiminnan vaatimuksia. Samoin voitaisiin pohtia sitä, onko nykyinen läänijakoon ja kihlakuntahallintoon sidottu paikallispoliisin organisaatio tarkoituksenmukaisin ratkaisu. Ratkaisevinta olisi kuitenkin sen pohtiminen, miten poliisin henkilöstön motivaatio voidaan turvata. Tässä suhteessa poliisin henkilöstön vaikutusmahdollisuuksia tulisi lisätä kaikilla tasoilla.

The study deals with police accountability. This multifaceted topic will be approached through a national and international discussion on the role and basic duties of the police, and the police organisation. From a conceptual viewpoint, the police accountability will mainly be studied as a question of the legal status of the police organisation as well as police powers and duties. From a philosophical viewpoint, the focus will lie on the moral and ethic aspects of accountability.

The basic elements of the discussion on police accountability are still questions of police organisation, police powers and the ethics of police activity. When meeting citizens expectations, the focus, as regards police accountability, has been transferred to the area of extended accountability. This extended accountability is now illustrated by means of the concept of public accountability. Such formal organisation of accountability as a hierarchical organisational structure and legal responsibility, do not, however, constitute a sufficiently solid basis for the realisation of public accountability. In addition, we need accountability as virtue, which in turn is a more comprehensive conceptual entity than the one referred to by ethic accountability, for example. In practice this means a transfer from such passive accountability as control-oriented activity and actors to a proactive and anticipatory aspects of accountability. Active accountability may be realised in the fr! amework of a hierarchical organisational structure and management system, and therefore it is more appropriate to talk about bureaucratic virtues.

In the study of the public accountability of the police, the key concept is the legitimacy of the police, which means legitimacy in dept being a stronger legal basis for operations than the gross legitimisation of the police. From a conceptual viewpoint, the police have a constant legitimacy problem. From the viewpoint of accountability, this means that the police shall constantly be able to redeem their legitimacy irrespective of whether there is a manifest problem or crisis. The essential thing is that the police may be regarded as accountable, not only as individual policemen performing their duties, but also as an organisation striving to maintain public confidence.

Firstly, the study will aim to find out how important the concepts that form public accountability can be considered for police administration. The study will focus on what the public accountability of the police means from a theoretical point of view. Secondly, the study will attempt to reveal what kind of acceptance the given interpretation of accountability gains within the police. The interest will lie on why public accountability needs to be discussed by the police. Thirdly, the study will discuss the extent to which the proposed interpretation of accountability can be applied. The issue will be for whom and why the police could be publicly responsible. Through these basic conceptual questions, the study will proceed to three verifying questions concerning the present, potential and likely idea of the accountability of the police. To get an answer to these verifying questions, a questionnaire was sent to everyone working for the police administration.

As a result of the study, the public accountability of the police is divided into five core areas, which are as follows: the efficiency of the accountability chain of the police, the realisation of the accountability for results, accountability of the police as virtue, precedence of professional accountability and the legitimacy of the police.

1. In the accountability chain of the police, emphasis is placed on the interdependence of political formation of intent, performance steering of the police and police practices, when creating, interpreting and carrying out strategies that unite police activity and finances. At the moment, the major obstacle to improving the efficiency of the accountability chain of the police is the strong divergence between strategic steering and operational activity. In this respect, the role of the Provincial Police Command draws attention as a black spot of strategic steering and operative management of the police on one hand. On the other hand, attention is drawn to the difficulty of combining police practices and political steering when creating police strategies. At present, preconditions for the integration of the operational and financial accountability of the police are insufficient.

2. The realisation of the accountability for results of the police is possible only after a connection has been established between police strategies, performance targets and appropriations both from a conceptual and a practical point of view. Therefore, performance plan-ning should cover all the police activity, and result talks should be extended to the whole police personnel. Accountability for results is a topic that can be defined, but the essential thing is that performance targets be made challenging in order to provide a new basis for police accountability as virtue. This form of active accountability can easily be realised in the framework of the hierarchical accountability structure of the police. Therefore, we can talk about accountability as bu-reaucratic virtue.

3. The most important forms of bureaucratic virtue of the police are to observe professional ethics, to respect citizens expectations, to appreciate the integrity of police organisation, to cherish the values of the work community and personal values, and to obey directors orders. The police are broadly unanimous that these virtues are of great importance.

4. Public accountability through virtue requires that the professional accountability of the police be prioritised. This means that the police administration is the best instance to interpret and modify the will of the political decisionmaker when drawing up police strategies and prioritising duties. Police strategies should be drawn up and prioritised on the basis of practical requirements. The integrity of the commitment to the activity in accordance with strategies requires that the whole police personnel participate in strategy work.

5. As regards the public accountability of the police, attention shall be paid to all the five core areas, with priority given to the police legitimacy. The basis is the enacted role of the police which shall balance with his preferred role. This way the powers given to the police by citizens would function as guidelines for an individual policeman s use of discretion. Consequently, police activity would eventually meet the expectations of the citizens.

The most essential result of the study is that there are fundamental preconditions for the realisation of the police legitimacy in depth by uniting hierarchical and professional accountability. The public accountability of the police is realised in both elements as forms of active accountability. Accountability for results is not the most essential form of accountability from the point of view of legitimacy, but it can be applied to performance agreements between different organisational levels and to drawing up strategies. The efficiency of the accountability chain of the police and the accountability for results correlate closely.

The study can be characterised as critically normative. By means of the verification of a theoretical frame of reference it reaches an empirically understandable research subject from which it has further been possible to make new interpretations.

This study supports the idea that a strong blue line with a low profile suits the Finnish Police. The low profile means that the role of the police as a body solving social problems does not have to be emphasised too strongly. In the long run, a low-profile police policy is the most sustainable basis justifying the right of existence of the police. In Finland, the police do not have to justify their existence with impressive operations, even though combating international crime can, from time to time, change the role of the police drastically.

The strong blue line in turn means that the police as an institution have to adhere to prioritising professional responsibility, which in practice means that the police themselves play the key role in forming their strategies and looking for equivalence to their strategies in practice. In fact, the basis for the efficiency of the police lies in the practical virtues which are very high as regards the police, as this study suggests.