Translation
Tema 1
LANDSBYGDEN
I had to ride a bike around and collect taxes.
It was terribly boring, completely soul-crushing.
Sometimes it seemed that those I visited
suspected me of keeping the money for myself.
There was often an uncomfortable air
during my visits. It seemed quite a sensitive thing
to reveal that the family could not afford to pay.
John Bårman, fjärdingsman, Helgum, 1939
In the past, parish constables
were called fjärdingsmän, literally “quartermen”.
The title was introduced in the 16th century.
The job was a local position of trust
in one quarter of a härad, or county district.
Each härad also had a supervisor
who was called a kronolänsman,
the head of the county chief constable.
In 1850, the assignment became a government position
with special instructions and regulations.
Now there would be a fjärdingsman in every parish,
in the area around a church. The title existed until 1954,
when it was changed to police constable.
19 years old. Proud, but anxious. How would I manage being the sole fjärdingsman?
With no money to buy a uniform. But my father paid for the police cap,
which was a must.
Ingvar Robertson, fjärdingsman, Torsås Parish, 1939
One summer evening, a young man was found dead on the dance floor in Ulvoberg.
Witnesses said a post from a roundpole fence was used in the fight.
The perpetrator said he stopped hitting immediately when the man fell.
He was later sentenced to prison for manslaughter.
Tycho Forssén, fjärdingsman, Dikanäs, 1940
A person had been murdered in the middle of my district.
As fjärdingsman, I was to assist in autopsies.
First I had to saw off the head and hold him still here and there.
Then I had to sew him up. No one can blame me for making long stitches.
Karl Henning Fröbom, fjärdingsman, Odensvi, 1917
Private life? What private life?
My wife got telephone calls round the clock, whether she wanted to or not,
because my office was in my home. She had to listen and promise the “fjärsman”
would return the call when he got home.
It was, unsurprisingly, quite disruptive to our family life.
Olle Falk, fjärdingsman, Skärplinge, 1947
LIVET PÅ STATIONEN
Only a man who could read and write,
was at least 170 centimetres tall
and had “honourable behaviour,
good health and a strong constitution”,
could join the police in the mid-19th century.
The policemen were often young and poor.
After just a few weeks’ training
they were put to work. At any moment
they could be judged unsuitable and sacked
for no apparent reason.
In the mid-19th century, the preferred recruits
were men with a military background.
They were trained to obey orders
and do as they were told.
“It wasn’t easy being a policeman in the early 20th century.
We had one free day every third week,”
recalls police constable Victor Öhrman.
It was eagerly awaited.
People planned what they were going to do far in advance
and rejoiced at being able to sleep a whole night.
Before being hired as a regular officer,
you had a sort of trial employment with the lowest wage of all.
“The pay envelope wasn’t fat,” says police constable Gustaf Rosén.
“I earned two kronor for every shift
and I had to pay for the uniform myself.
It was impossible to get more than six hours’ continuous sleep.
I only had eight hours off. Before the next shift, I also had to eat
or run other errands.
Gustaf Adolf Blomberg, police constable, Stockholm, 1918
Police boxes were installed in Stockholm in 1931. They contained a telephone so policemen could report in to the station twice an hour. Red lights lit up on street corners when the station needed to contact the policeman. The public could also use the telephone in the police box if necessary.
In Gothenburg, policemen could telegraph messages between police stations. A bit like the text messages of our day. This particular type of telegraph was called a pointer telegraph and was manufactured by Öller & Co. This model was most common along the railway and required a bit less training than regular telegraphy.
Police officers have always shared information with each other to fight crime. Three times a week in the years 1878–1982, a newspaper called Polisunderrättelser (Police Intelligence) was sent to all police stations. It contained information about drifters and wanted men, people in custody and released, and also about stolen goods.
PÅ PLATS I STADEN
On the streets you were on your own
When I started patrolling,
I felt very uncertain.
The uniform gave me a specific role.
It felt as if people became tense and watchful,
maybe even scared, whether or not
they had a reason to be.
I was more on my guard too,
because on the streets you were on your own.
You walked the beat alone,
with no colleagues to turn to.
Jan Olsson, police constable, Stockholm 1959
I knew a constable
who removed his helmet on a warm, sunny day.
Suddenly a superintendent came along
and wondered why he was holding his helmet.
“It was so hot I had to take it off a moment,”
the constable replied.
“I see,” said the superintendent, and left.
The next day the constable was sacked.
Henning Steijnick, police constable, Stockholm, 1915
The first Police Act was enacted in 1925.
After that, police constables could no longer be fired
on arbitrary grounds.
A constable on patrol
could be inspected and examined
at any time
by constabulary inspectors,
the chief superintendent,
the district superintendent,
the district inspector,
the deputy inspector
the central inspector
and the central constabulary.
Victor Öhman, police constable, Gothenburg, 1909
The constant inspections
created a desire to cheat the system.
There is a story of a constable
who was offered a meal
after clearing a restaurant of criminals.
Suddenly the top superintendent was outside.
The constable quickly put on a skirt and shawl
and called for an ambulance.
He rode with it a while, got out
and went back to his beat.
Other constables talk about special places
where they could escape from the inspectors
and the cold for a half hour or so.
These places were called “Parisian cafés”.
“I’ll never forget my first shift. I put on my uniform, my Sam Browne belt with my sabre, and walked up to the police station. What if something happened?
But everything went well. There was only a lady asking about a bus stop.”
Leif Blom, police constable, Stockholm, 1958
A police officer could be recognised by his uniform, equipment and insignia.
He was to be visible, but not talk to people. This was to inspire respect.
Police officers were only allowed to speak to the general public to correct or assist them. The ban on speaking was lifted in 1947. This would be the dawn of a friendlier breed of police officer.
Police officers were equipped with sabres for more than 100 years. All the way to 1965. The sabre wasn’t sharp and was used largely like a baton.
Policemen were only allowed to strike with the broad side of the sabre.
They were absolutely forbidden to chop with it.
When police officers went out on patrol, they were equipped with their insignia,
a whistle and a key to the town’s emergency alarm box. Handcuffs were included, of course, as well as tokens to use public transport in professional business. Later, they also had coins to be able to use telephone booths.
The police monitored public order
through assigned patrol beats.
They patrolled the town’s streets alone,
up and down pre-defined routes.
They were only allowed to leave their beat
if the public needed their assistance.
We patrolled in the middle of the street.
It wasn’t so dangerous when traffic was horse-drawn,
but then cars came along. One foggy night,
a constable was run over on Drottninggatan.
It was many years before we were allowed
to patrol on the pavements.
Georg Konrad Carlsson, police constable, Gävle, 1917
In the right place at the right time
As night patrols, we stopped at several police boxes in the town.
They contained a key to the time clock we carried with us.
When you turned the key, the clock stamped a strip of paper inside it.
These papers showed whether we did our work punctually.
Ivar Edhlund, police constable, Östhammar, 1929
Emergency alarm boxes were placed in several locations in towns.
Police officers could unlock the box to call the station if they needed help.
In the 19th century, many people
moved to cities and towns to find work
in the then-new factories.
Poverty was rampant.
Public disturbances were common.
A new police organisation was needed
to manage the new situation in towns.
Stockholm was the first place to launch
the new police organisation in 1850.
Other towns soon followed suit.
But they had to pay for their own police officers,
while the state continued to pay
for country police.
It would take a long time
before we got a nationalised police force.
SPRITPOLIS OCH POLISSYSTRAR
One day, a drunk man was arrested on Tegelbacken.
Under his arm was a giant ham.
The man said he was going to Kungsholmen
to trade the ham for a few litres of moonshine.
I sent out a police constable
to the area. There, we found
one of the best seizures we’ve ever made:
A brass distillery.
Johan August Gustafsson, contraband officer, Stockholm, 1923
We were used to encountering a lot of drunks in Gothenburg,
but one day the drunk tanks were already full by midday!
We had to carry or drive the drunks in carts
and horse-drawn carriages to the police station.
Finally we realised what had happened.
The drunks had found liquor barrels on the quay
and inserted hollow reeds to suck out the booze.
The barrels were loaded onto a ship
and then the party was over
Victor Öhman, police constable, Gothenburg, 1909
In the 1910s, Stockholm had civilian patrols
looking out for bootleggers.
They worked on commission
and were paid according to
how many smugglers they caught.
To find home distilleries,
the police had to search in attics
and dirty cellars. The devices were often dismantled
and the parts hidden in different places.
In the 1920s, liquor smuggling
exploded across the Baltic Sea.
The alcohol police was founded
to try and stop the smugglers
before they got to Stockholm.
Back then, like now, alcohol consumption
had a major impact on what the police had to deal with.
Between 1890 and 1910,
half of all arrests were for “public drunkenness”.
These days, it is no longer a crime
to be drunk in a public place.
In 1977, the Care of Intoxicated Persons Act,
or LOB, replaced the alcohol police.
People are taken into custody to keep them
from harming themselves or others.
There is no specific figure, but these days
the police take 55,000 to 60,000 people
into custody under LOB each year.
I arrested a man for public drunkenness.
Later I learned that the drunk had left me 10 kronor.
I’m afraid that’s the only time I’ve been rewarded for that work.
If I had 10 quid for every drunk over the years, I’d be rich.
Ragnar Lidberg, police constable, Gothenburg, 1925
We found part of a home distillery in an anthill and sat down to wait.
Soon, three men popped up with materials for distilling. As soon as the alcohol began dripping, we moved in. The men asked if they could keep going until they’d filled a cask.
“Nope,” I said. “But you can have a swig from my flask.”
Gustaf Henning Eriksson, police constable, Jämtland, 1930s
He who laughs last, laughs best
The police found this flower box with four flower pots at a woman’s home in Södermalm. In a secret compartment in the box were three litres of export alcohol.
The woman had previously sneered at the constable looking for alcohol.
But she wasn’t laughing now.
August Verner Felin, Ernst Hilmer Köpper and Ernst Johan Sigfrid Magnusson, detective inspectors, Stockholm, 1925
In the early 20th century, various attempts were made to limit alcohol consumption.
In 1922, a public referendum on a total alcohol ban was held. The people said no.
But the restrictions remained and extensive alcohol smuggling began. The Baltic Sea was given the nickname “The Vodka Sea”.
Public drunkenness took up so much of the police’s time that a drunkenness stamp was manufactured in 1965 to speed up bookings. The stamp was used until 1977, when public drunkenness was decriminalised.
It’s not always easy to search women.
We’ve taken the occasional fist to the face,
but little things like that are part of the job.
But I have huge respect for big hatpins.
That’s why I disarm the most belligerent women
before I start. As long as I eliminate their hatpins and shoes,
they’re fairly harmless.
Signe Stranne, Gothenburg’s first police nurse, 1911
In 1908, three nurses were hired
on Stockholm’s police corps.
Women, with their caring qualities,
were thought to be better at handling other women.
Drunk women were considered extra-difficult.
The new police nurses’ primary responsibility
was women and children who were taken into custody
or needed social services.
Eventually, police nurses also got
to conduct surveillance, investigate crimes and earn promotions.
But they retained the title of police nurse until 1954.
I attended the first police nurse training course in Stockholm in 1944.
That’s when I discovered that men got paid during their internships, but not women.
I wanted to find out why, but the other women didn’t want me to rock the boat.
It ended well and everyone got paid.
Irene Åström, police nurse, Eskilstuna, 1944
In the 1950s, new emergency alarm boxes came
that both police and the public could use
to contact the police station.
DEN MOBILA POLISEN
Because traffic signals were controlled by timers,
we had to regulate traffic to avoid congestion.
Most vehicles headed into the town centre
in the mornings and out from the centre
in the afternoons.
We easily changed the traffic signals
by pressing buttons,
but sometimes the signals were broken.
When that happened, we had to hand-direct traffic
until the signals were fixed.
Leif Blom, police constable, Stockholm, 1959
When cars became more common, the police had to adapt.
It was too dangerous to patrol in the middle of the street.
Traffic direction became a necessity,
and the police had to get cars of their own.
The Stockholm police bought a police van in 1913,
a Scania Vabis with seats the length of the sides.
It was to be used for major turnouts.
The first regular police cars came in the 1930s.
But it took longer before rural police got cars.
In Åmål, police constables rode bikes
until 1961, when a Volvo Amazon was purchased.
Police constable Gustaf Blomberg had a driving licence
and was ordered to the motorcycle division in 1923.
He and his colleagues rode their motorcycles with sidecars
through 1920s Stockholm.
On one of their missions, they had to go to Norrtälje.
Along the road were 17 bar gates
that had to be opened and closed.
Perhaps a child occasionally helped them for a coin or two?
But the sidecar passenger
probably still had to jump in and out many times.
Red Indian Powerplus motorcycle, 1918
registration number A591. The A stands for the City of Stockholm.
Motorcycle police were called “interceptors”. They made sure no one drove too fast. As they couldn’t measure speeds, they judged them by feel.
The first speeder, or “report for reckless driving”, was stopped on 18 May 1900.
In 1923, the speed limit was 35 kph in urban communities.
To ensure that people crossed the street correctly in Stockholm,
pedestrian crossings were implemented in the 1930s. Some of them were experimentally marked with lighted glass globes.
Police constable Helge Henriksson said that the glass globes
were called “oranges” because they resembled the fruit.
Newspapers wrote about
how improper it was for women to be police.
When they got pregnant,
they wouldn’t be of any use to the force.
The first day we stepped outside in uniform
we were met by camera clicks and flashes.
We had practised taking equally long strides as men
so we could all walk in step.
On my first shift, I directed rush-hour traffic.
We stood in traffic shelters to keep warm
and avoid being hit by cars.
But when the traffic lights didn’t work
we had to stand in the middle of the street.
Sigun Ekström, police constable, Stockholm, 1957
Detective superintendent Gillis Cassel designed the women’s uniform in 1957.
It didn’t have real breast pockets because it was considered inappropriate for women to put anything in a breast pocket. But without one their busts became even more visible. The solution was decorative pocket flaps that were sewn in place.
