Informative working visit of Commissioner Janny Knol to the Netherlands Police Academy

Yesterday, Janny Knol, Commissioner of the Netherlands Police, paid a working visit to the Netherlands Police Academy in Apeldoorn. She got acquainted with the various police training sectors and the Knowledge & Research sector.

Around the year 2000, Janny Knol herself was active as a legal skills lecturer at a forerunner of the present Police Academy. Together with a colleague she also gave practical training courses. “I was a sort of factotum for all police subjects,” Knol remembers. “I really liked teaching. In the memorandum I wrote when I started this job, I talked about the meaning and the identity of the police in society. I thought a lot about this subject when I was a lecturer. 

As a lecturer, you should also address the why question. The importance of legitimacy and society’s trust in the police and in what we do. This is where the basis lies. I have very fond memories of teaching. I also consider it my first trial period as a manager. As a lecturer you have to manage a group. This is where I took the first steps.”

Crash course in all subjects

“This working visit to the Netherlands Police Academy was a crash course. I got acquainted with all the departments making up the Police Academy,” Knol continued. “There’s so much I can tell you about it. I loved, for instance, talking with students at a location for basic police training. They only just started the first quarter of their education. I saw them training together, slightly awkward in their uniforms, in the process of developing their professional identity. But I also talked to students who were ready and rearing to get into action.”

Proud of what the Netherland Police Academy achieves

On to the subject of specialist police training. Colleagues showed Knol how they had developed the integrated teaching modules for the new Sexual Offences Act within six months. Knol took a lecture in the higher vocational education (HBO) police training, where a lecturer explained the investigative methods used in criminal investigation.

Knol: “I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that we have forms of teaching that are fully adapted to this day and age. Many different forms, in which the student’s own responsibility is vital. I like that. We can be very proud of all the things the Netherlands Police Academy manages to achieve.”

Ambition to increasingly involve science

The last part of the visit focussed on Knowledge & Research. “The colleagues of Knowledge & Research are closely linked to the working area of the police, to operations,” Knol knows. “We discussed the vision of the police force, in what direction the force should be heading. This is where we want more scientific involvement. 

So science should not just be used in the line from the academy to operations, but also at the strategic level to jointly set a course for the police. This is already happening, but it would be good to connect Knowledge & Research more closely to force command. This is the ambition we expressed.”