The Swedish police has been categorized as a pre-profession (Brante, 2014) due to a lack of a clearly defined scientific base but also with a substantive and organizational approach to the academic system. By interviewing all Swedish police officers with a PhD, this study aims to investigate aspects of the relationship between academic and professional logic of policing, something that has been described as “two worlds thinking” (Hallenberg, 2012). The narratives of the PhD-police officers embody the pioneering work of such two worlds thinking. With some exceptions, the interviewees experience difficulties in converting their doctorate into careers within the Swedish Police Authority (SPA). Their research and acquired skills are perceived as uninteresting, and sometimes threatening. This generates friction and exclusion. Instead, usability is identified in relation to the police training and/or within the academic system.

 Two analytical tracks that indicate incompatibility between the police organisation and academic knowledge has been identified.

1.      Almost all interviewees express phantom pains after leaving the profession. This has been interpreted as a type of disengaging process that has been described in social exit-processes (Ebaugh, 1988).

2.      The lacking ability to transform academic knowledge and skills into something useful indicate an organization where such knowledge can be interpreted as organizational pollution (Douglas, 1966), uncapable to be integrated as “pure”. By complementing the interviewees with an analysis of their PhD-thesis, the actions taken by the SPA can be understood as a procedure of social closure (Weber, 1922) where the definition of the police profession is protected.