”Samoin kielletään vartiokonstaapeleita ankarimmin lähestymästä katukäytävää silloin, kun joku käytävällä ohi kulkeva häneltä pyytää neuvoa, sillä se on kysyjän ”Also it is strictly forbidden for a police officer to approach a sidewalk when there is someone coming closer and asking an advice, because it is that persons concern to come closer to officer if he has something to ask.” Finnish Police’s communication guideline, 1922
As some of you might know, I’m working as an inspector in Police Department of Central Finland. My job is to take care of police departments’ communication. That’s not my only responsibility, but it is the most time-consuming and, I have to say, the most difficult part of my work. That’s why I’m doing this - studying organizational communication here in Jyväskylä Open University. And when time goes on, I might even learn something - I hope! For me the best way to learn communication skills is to take only small steps at a time. And this is one of those small steps (it might seem really small for you). I am now starting something unusual for me. I’m bloging! How great is that!
My blog’s headline is Police and PR. I don’t want to draw the line only in Finnish Police, because I’m very interested to hear how things are in other countries, how Police is taken care of its PR abroad. So feel free to comment and give examples from all around the world.
I was wondering if things have changed in past years from that guideline I wrote at the beginning? What do you think? Have things changed in In this blog I try to give you a little view of Finnish Police’s PR and communication skills; or lack of those skills. It is for you to decide… - so Hand’s Up and don’t move, there is more to come!
Could not help but thinking of refugees etc who might have bad experiences of police in their country of origin. Does the the police use PR to build up confidence? How?
VastaaPoistaFirst thing that came to my mind, is the today's use of reality shows. I think they will give a bit different image and ease approaching officers, that you mentioned to be very important. Or is it so? At least I remember maybe reading something of raised number of applicants to the Police School.
VastaaPoistaOk let's test commenting again:)
VastaaPoistaMy comment to your blog was: very interesting topic. and in the text questions for readers as an inspiration for discussion are good tactics.
VastaaPoistaLayout is good. Maybe it would be good to include also more visual materials - your first post is quite long and without visual part attention can "sleep". also - police as a topic is so visual itself - it needs pictures :) and now, let's see how commenting is going on :)