After three decades in uniform and the completion of a doctoral dissertation, former police superintendent Jari Taponen made the decision to leave the force. His departure, he says, followed a growing sense that policing and the society it serves were drifting apart.
“The police have become politicised, and no one wants to admit it,” Taponen said.
Jari Taponen
According to him, the organisation’s claims of political neutrality are at odds with its operational structures. “Performance targets come directly from the government programme. In that sense, the police carry out political will whether they want to or not.”
After his resignation, Taponen founded a company called Prevenza together with Susanna Makaroff. The company focuses on social safety, community resilience and evidence-based crime prevention.
A central source of frustration for Taponen was what he describes as the police organisation’s inability to adapt to societal change. “Preventive work gave me a broader perspective on issues like community strength, integration, and reducing polarization,” he says. “But the organisation did not evolve in that direction.”
The breaking point became even clearer during his doctoral research. As he examined the effects of police actions on crime and public safety, he realised that reliable research data was extremely scarce, despite strong assumptions in public debate.
“It is commonly assumed that police actions have clear and predictable effects. But research shows they are highly context-dependent — and sometimes neutral or even negative.”
For Taponen, this lack of research leaves room for interpretations based on assumptions. “There is little research, and official communication often relies more on impressions than on reality.”
While working in the Helsinki police, Taponen followed recurring claims of rising youth crime and talk of gangs involving young people with immigrant backgrounds. According to him, these narratives do not emerge spontaneously.