Jauhiainen elected Police of the Year

Senior Constable Vesa Jauhiainen from the Southwest Finland Police Department has been elected the Police Officer of the Year 2019, said a press release issued by National Police Board.

Jauhiainen has been working as a field officer in various tasks for almost 40 years. Currently, he works in the field surveillance squad of the Turku Police Headquarters, focusing on young people under the age of 18.

This year, in the selection of the Police Officer of the Year emphasized to the foundations of all police work, monitoring and emergency response operations.

The uniformed police officers working in monitoring and emergency duties are the first ones to reach the site when something happens.

Even the most challenging emergency duties in surveillance and field operations are part of Jauhiainen’s everyday work.

He has also been involved in Jouha activities (crowd control), acted as use of force instructor and motorcycle police officer, and operated in the Rad working group tackling the issue of radicalisation.

Jauhiainen has also been working for many years as the regional police officer specifically assigned to the Varissuo suburb in Turku particularly among young people, collaborating with different authorities, inhabitants of the area and the third sector.

According to the grounds for Jauhiainen’s selection, he has been serving as a police officer in surveillance and field operations in an exemplary manner for several years. For his younger colleagues, Jauhiainen is an excellent example of a person who continues his meritorious and active work career even after official retirement age as a police officer enthusiastic about his work every single day.

According to those who chose the winner, he is exactly the kind of policeman with a face whose presence is needed on site in the challenging and multidimensional modern society.

“Jauhiainen has been meritoriously building an image of Finland as a democratic and equal society and shown with his own actions, for example, to many inhabitants with a foreign background that in Finland police is honest and reliable, thus contributing to how police is regarded in the suburbs of Turku,” the grounds for his nomination state.

“I’ve never been much of a student. When I was in the army, my mother told me that the application period to the Police College was open. She then put all the necessary documents together, and I managed to send the application to the Police College,” Jauhiainen said.

For him, the job as a police officer has become a vocation. 62-year-old Jauhiainen could have retired as long as four years ago, but his enthusiasm still helps him carry on in his work.

“This is a very rewarding job, where you can see the impact of what you’re doing. This work really has a purpose,” Jauhiainen said, referring particularly to the community police work in the suburbs.

The Police Officer of the Year was now selected for the 44th time. The recipient is decided by JCI Helsinki, the Finnish Police Federation and the National Police Board. The recipient of the title was published at the House of Nobility in Helsinki on 11 October 2019.