TURVALLISUUSTOIMIJUUTTA ETSIMÄSSÄ

Kirjoittajat

• Karri Lahtinen Kaartin Jääkärirykmentti
• Eero Koljonen Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu

Avainsanat:

turvallisuus, sotilaat, poliisit, identiteetti, ammatti-identiteetti

Abstrakti

This article is a shortened version of CPT Lahtinen´s master´s thesis that he did on cadets´ and police students´ understanding of themselves as representatives of their own profession. The aim of study was to produce content to facilitate professional growth and to support the personal identity projects of the individuals themselves by comparing the professional identities of the two groups of security actors and by describing the nature of being a security actor. The main research question in the study was: Are there such similarities in cadets´and police students´ descriptions of understanding their professional identity that could be summarized as being shared by all security actors? The question is answered by categorizing the descriptions of understanding given by the respondents concerning their professional identity and by describing the ways the two groups describe the meaning of their chosen profession in terms of their own personal identity projects and how the decision to become a security actor has affected their own identity. The study also considers the impact the respondents' notions of professional identity have on overall security. The study is qualitative in nature and uses a phenomenographic research approach. The research material was collected with an open questionnaire and analyzed by phenomenographic analysis. The results are shown as professional identity categories of the two respondent groups and summarized as common features of security actors. It was found out in the study that he most descriptive feature of being a security actor was the respondents´ own belief of their profession´s necessity in a functional society. Conserning overall security it is relevant that the individuals that work as security actors see their profession not only to be an instrument of security but also as an object worth securing. With this professional identity category that rose hierarchically above the other categories the security actors were also able to add different features of professional identity to their identity projects such as the identities of being the enablers of safe and secure living, the backbones of order in the society and the adaptable multitools of security.