The main activities of police officers. Professionally important personality traits of a police officer depending on the type of activity. Professional skills of a police officer and its psychological components
Another branch of legal psychology is psychology of professional activity of a police officer. This branch of psychological knowledge studies psychological patterns, features of professional activity and professionally important qualities of police officers in order to improve the efficiency of official activities. Therefore, the main goal of this lecture comes down to clarifying issues about increasing the efficiency of official and professional activities of employees.
According to the classification of the famous domestic psychologist in the field of psychology of professional work E.A. Klimov, the employee’s profession belongs to professions of the “person-to-person” type, therefore the object and subject of the study of the psychology of professional activity is of a personal nature.
Object research in this area is traditionally a person, an offender, a criminal, a citizen, a police officer.
As components subject research can be distinguished:
· psychological aspects of the employee’s performance of official duties;
· the employee’s personality and his professionally significant qualities;
· professional suitability and professional reliability of police officers;
· psychological aspects of personnel selection and placement;
· professional deformation of police officers;
· professional skills and self-improvement of police officers, etc.;
As modern tasks issues facing the psychology of professional activity of police officers, we highlight:
1. Identification of the relationships between the personal properties of an employee and the requirements that the profession and society as a whole place on her. This is relevant in connection with solving the problems of increasing the authority of the police in our society. Moreover, every respected specialist, at various stages of his development, thinks about how well he meets the requirements placed on him by management and the population, what needs to be done to improve his skills, etc.
2) Finding out the reasons for its occurrence, as well as preventing and overcoming professional deformation.
3) Psychologically competent implementation of the processes of professional training and professional excellence in order to increase the efficiency of the performance of official activities by an internal affairs officer, especially in extreme conditions.
Let's start studying this industry with questions about the components of the professional activities of police officers. In topic number 7 "Psychological foundations of the investigation of crimes" we have already considered the concept of a professiogram.
Recall that under professiogram in psychology understand a scientifically substantiated and practically confirmed list of interrelated activities, as well as professionally significant qualities that affect the success of each type of activity and, in general, professional activity.
The use of psychological knowledge to analyze the professional activities of a lawyer allowed a number of domestic researchers, in particular, A.V. Dulov, V.L. Vasilyev, Yu.F. .
Professional legal activity is complex and multifaceted, the ultimate goal of which is to establish the truth. V.L. Vasiliev identifies the following aspects as the fundamental activities of a lawyer, to which the profession of an investigator is reduced: cognitive, reconstructive, social, communicative, organizational, identification .
These aspects of activity are aimed at solving the tasks facing employees. These tasks of police officers are formulated in the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Police” (Article 9 and Article 10) dated April 18, 1991, as well as other regulatory documents: 1) on security personality, public safety; 2) about protection of property, public order; 3) in detection, prevention and suppression crimes and administrative offenses; 4) p concealment of crimes in cases in which preliminary investigation is not necessary; 5) p search certain categories of persons. Taking into account the specifics of the activities of police officers, we will combine these types of activities in the following form:
1) search, reconstructive, identification – cognitive-prognostic. The local commissioner, traffic police officer, traffic police officer, receives information, for example, about persons living in the territory who have previously been convicted, about offenders and the circumstances of the accident, etc. The objectivity and completeness of such information determines the forecast for the development of further events (behavior of victims, criminals, emergency situation on road, etc.), and therefore the success of fulfilling duties related to investigating a crime, regulating traffic, identifying the causes of an accident, and, in general, official activities. At the same time, documents drawn up in the course of carrying out activities as unique results of activities and a form of reporting (protocols, reports, memos, etc.) simultaneously contribute to consolidating legally significant information, its systematization, making a decision on the case, etc. Recently, in this regard, attention has been paid to the following qualities: good ability to speak written language, which must be literate not only from a legal point of view, but also differ in compliance with the rules of grammar, punctuation, logic, and style. So, to implement this component of the professiogram, the employee is required to have highly developed following qualities: erudition, observation, memory for appearance, people’s behavior, numbers; criticality and consistency of thinking, literacy in writing, etc.;
2) Communication activities comes down to skillful mastery of speech and non-speech means of communication, understanding people's behavior and interpreting this behavior. Each time a police officer deals with different people who are in certain states, relationships with the police, etc. Despite the negativism, hostility, and reluctance of citizens to enter into contacts, employees must demonstrate communicative competence, which is manifested in: the ability to establish trusting relationships and resolve conflict situations; tactfulness, ability to overcome communication barriers, etc.
3) organizational and managerial activity comes down to organizing one’s own activities, as well as organizing and managing the behavior and activities of citizens, work colleagues, etc. Police officers often work in stressful and extreme conditions, so they need to be psychologically prepared to solve operational and service tasks, be able to plan and organize work, associated with risk to life. To carry out the necessary activities at the scene of traffic accidents, draw up protocols for violators of traffic rules and resolve other issues, the employee needs organizational skills and abilities. The employee must have the following strong-willed qualities: initiative, resourcefulness, determination, dedication, etc.
4) Social activities include preventive measures, legal propaganda, participation in the resocialization of those released from prison. So, for example, a traffic police inspector, a local police officer, must be able to provide educational and preventive influence on various social and age categories of traffic law offenders. To carry out a social activity, an employee needs: a developed legal consciousness, professional orientation and interest in work, honesty, compliance with the requirements of the code of professional ethics, etc.
An analysis of the specifics of police activity allows for the most general characteristics, some of which coincide with those that we identified from the investigator:
1) the activities of the public security police are a type of public service, and the procedure for employees to undergo it is determined in the Regulations on Service in the Internal Affairs Bodies of the Russian Federation;
2) activities of police officers is built on the principles of legality, humanism, respect for human rights and transparency;
3) legal regulation police activities in the field of fighting crime and protecting public safety, as well as authority;
4) as a rule, performing police functions offenders and their accomplices oppose;
5) police officers use specific means of influence, including coercion, in the process of preventing and suppressing offenses (psychological influence, in the form of warnings, remarks, etc.; the use of special means, physical force and firearms);
6) variety of special situations situations in which police officers have to act, determines the requirement for their psychological readiness, the ability to quickly enter into the essence of the event that occurred and communicative qualities;
7) police activities take place in conditions of secrecy and the need for employees to maintain it official secrets.
8) extreme activity associated with the presence of various stress factors (increased responsibility, uncertainty of information, lack of time, health hazards, etc.) and mental overload at work;
9) on the activities of employees affect the atmosphere in society, assessments by the population of the degree of its effectiveness and the emerging police authority.
The complexity of the activities of police officers dictates high demands on the professional preparedness and training of each employee, developing their knowledge, skills, abilities, abilities, and forming certain characterological qualities. Therefore, we will highlight the psychological characteristics of various types of activities of police officers, as well as the professional qualities they need to carry out these activities.
Preventive activities aims to prevent crime and emergencies. This type of activity is an integral part of public security police officers. This type of activity is especially typical for the district police commissioner. This service makes up only 8% of the police personnel, specifically 52 thousand employees. Despite this, local police commissioners suppress more than 8 million administrative offenses, monitor the behavior of over 4 million people who have returned from places of imprisonment or have been sentenced to penalties not related to imprisonment.
Population surveys show that about 70% of citizens prefer to contact the local police inspector. This is due to the territorial proximity and the ability to quickly respond, i.e. prompt resolution of issues related to ensuring law and order.
Thus, we can highlight the following main characteristics of the activities of police officers:
Psychological features of the working conditions of police officers:
- legal regulation;
- the presence of power;
- constant confrontation and opposition of interested persons;
- time shortage;
- Increased levels of stress.
The main components of the activities of an internal affairs officer:
- educational;
- constructive;
- organizational;
- communicative.
Introduction
professional psychological worker
Any professional activity is in one way or another connected with communication, including the work of internal affairs officers. The complexity and unpredictability of the work of police officers brings to life the need to address the problem of studying professional communication, its content and features, unforeseen situations that arise when interacting with colleagues, suspects, and criminals. A police officer must have self-control, tact, know the basics of professional ethics, and be able to use psychological techniques in problematic situations that require decisiveness and clarity in their resolution.
For professional communication of a police officer to be effective and successful, he must understand the psychology of communication and have the ability to draw conclusions based on facts and his own observations. The relevance of the study of the psychological characteristics of professional communication among police officers is confirmed, firstly, by the requirements of the time, and secondly, by the specifics of the profession itself. The work of a policeman, investigator, or expert does not tolerate mistakes. The job requires the ability to understand the psychology of a wide variety of groups of people and act according to the situation.
Communication problems have been considered by many authors, such as G.M. Andreeva, B.F. Parygin, S.L. Rubinstein, V.E. Holla, A.P. Panfilov and others. More specifically, taking into account the professional aspect, we studied the communication of I.V. Lebedev, V.L. Tsvetkov, E.A. Korsunsky, N.V. Kuzmina, M.I. Enikeev., B.E. Bogdanov, V.A. Noskov. A generalization of scientific data can serve as an excellent aid in the practice of a police officer.
The purpose of the work is to identify and analyze the psychological characteristics of professional communication among police officers.
To achieve the goal, the following tasks are set:
Identify the importance of professional communication in the field of activity of police officers;
Analyze the psychological patterns of communication between law enforcement officers;
Consider technologies for effectively influencing a communication partner in work situations.
The work consists of an introduction, three parts, and a conclusion, in which the problem under consideration is analyzed in detail.
1. The importance of professional communication in the field of activity of police officers
The work of police officers includes organized and effective communication between law enforcement officers and citizens, managers with subordinates, and representatives of various departments of the police department. Professional communication among law enforcement officials refers to specially organized interaction between people (managers and subordinates, employees, peers, employees and citizens, employees and offenders). The content of such interaction includes cognition, exchange of information and the influence of communication participants on each other to solve law enforcement problems. A number of important characteristics can be identified in the professional communication of employees.
The orientation of professional communication can be social or personal. Personality-oriented communication is considered to be communication that affects a specific person. Socially oriented communication is communication with a large audience through the media or by speaking to the public with a message or report. This form of communication is designed for a large number of people.
Using this quantitative characteristic of professional communication, it is possible to assess the “distance” between communicating persons. Direct communication refers to the interaction between people “face to face”. The focus of such communication is interpersonal. But the work of police officers is characterized by a completely different type of communication - indirect communication. Such communication is carried out with the help of various regulatory documents (orders, instructions, individual instructions, etc.) and informational documents (operational guidelines, messages, requests, etc.). Indirect communication can also occur through the media, for example, in the case of an appeal to the population with a request for help in finding a dangerous criminal, etc. A distinction is made between symmetrical and asymmetrical communication. In the first case, mutual influences are natural, and in the second, the influence is one-sided (for example, an order from a superior or a procedural decision of an investigator).
In the psychological content of professional communication, new features are learned from contact to contact. As people get to know each other better, trusting relationships arise between them, or hostility arises, which can serve as a source of conflicting relationships. The dynamics of communication are ensured through people’s assessments and experiences. These are assessments of the effectiveness of contacts and the quality of relationships. Communication is a source of influence on changes in the states and properties of the human psyche in both positive and negative directions.
Modern realities force police officers to constantly improve their level of professional and psychological training, including in the field of organizing professional contacts. The effectiveness of professional communication can be directly related to the level of knowledge of the psychological characteristics, stages and availability of the participants in this interaction.
With the help of modern psychotechnologies (neurolinguistic programming, psychosynthesis, psychokinetics, psychoconflictology, etc.), it is possible to identify with greater psychological literacy the features of constructing specific acts of professional communication. In this case, professional planning and achievement of specific job objectives takes place.
2. Psychological patterns of communication between police officers
In the structure of communication, one can distinguish communicative, perceptual and interactive sides. However, such a division is possible only as a method of analysis; in everyday communication, people do not notice the boundaries between these parties.
The communicative side is represented by the exchange of information between people. A law enforcement officer is constantly in interaction and communication with the person who needs his help, a work colleague, a suspect, etc. The success of its activity depends on the quality of the dialogue.
A dialogue is considered productive when there is “feedback” between its participants. To do this, it is necessary to follow the basic scheme for transmitting information: “Who” is the communicator, i.e. the person sending the information; "What" - the content, the information itself; “To” - a communication partner who receives information, “Effect” - shows the effectiveness of communication, as understood by the communicator, signals feedback.
For the correct operation of this scheme, it is necessary to observe the tools of communication: systems of signs, understanding of situations, context, etc. Context is the meaning field of a word. The same word can change its meaning. So the word “pen” in the criminal sense means “knife”. A police officer, having heard the phrase that someone is preparing a “pen” for someone, will assess the situation as an impending murder.
As a result of their activities, law enforcement officers must properly communicate with colleagues, superiors, accused, victims, and witnesses. Therefore, when communicating with a person, it is necessary to take into account which of the listed groups he belongs to in order to correctly build the communication process.
From a psychological point of view, when communicating with the victim, it is important that the explanation of the essence of the charge and the procedural rights of the accused be done in simple, accessible language. It is necessary to obtain answers to all questions asked of the accused. To do this, the employee must rely on observation, intuition - the ability to see the relationship between the manifestation of personality traits and its internal state, knowledge of the psychological foundations of personality.
When working with the victim, it is necessary to take into account his psychological state. To do this, you need to resort to empathy, i.e. the ability to respond emotionally to the experiences of other people, and also to use the possibilities of identification - putting oneself in the place of another.
However, in any communication there may be interference that prevents complete clarity and understanding of the conversation. The reason for this is a variety of barriers to communication, such as competence, selective listening, value judgments, source credibility, filtering, in-group language, status differences, time pressure, communication overload.
Specific communication barriers can also arise in people’s communication: logical (each person sees a problem from his own point of view), semantic (depending on the context, one word can have several meanings), stylistic (inconsistency of communication style with the situation), phonetic (an obstacle based on features of the speaker's speech).
In addition to the typical communication barriers described above that interfere with the effective perception of information, there are others: these are psychological barriers - attitudes, psychological defenses, character.
Installation barrier. The interlocutor may have a negative attitude towards the organization of which the speaker is a representative, or towards the speaker personally. Police officers often encounter precisely this psychological barrier. If there is hostility on the part of the interlocutor, you should treat it as a manifestation of ignorance, weakness, lack of culture, simple ignorance. Then the unfair attitude or inappropriate behavior of the partner will not hurt you.
Barrier of psychological defense. The built-up psychological defense is one of the serious barriers to communication. Perhaps an indifferent, unfriendly, taciturn or aggressive, agitated, tense interlocutor needs understanding, to be listened to and understood. Having realized that the barrier in communicating with an inconvenient partner is caused by his desire to defend himself, you need to try to change your attitude towards him, and the difficulties in communicating with such a person will disappear.
Character barrier. Each person has his own character, but well-mannered, self-controlled people know how to behave in such a way that their character does not become a source of conflict or discomfort. Not everyone, however, wants and knows how to understand themselves and control themselves. People with pronounced temperamental characteristics are often uncomfortable interlocutors.
Personal and psychological barriers that arise in the process of interaction can also be determined by different value systems, negative attitudes against each other and prejudices. The inability to listen and manage emotions, the unaesthetic appearance of the interlocutor - all this can give rise to psychological barriers that can arise before the start of interaction (unpleasant first impression), during contact (inadequate reaction, unpleasant facial expressions, etc.) and after the end of communication (negative impression from a meeting or from a conversation).
The perceptual side of communication is represented by the process of perception, study and evaluation by interlocutors of each other. Perception - a process of perception that promotes mutual understanding between participants in communication. Perception is influenced by subjective and objective factors. Objective includes everything that is directly perceived in a partner: appearance, speech, features of facial expressions, etc. Subjective - everything that determines depending on the circumstances: the purpose of communication, role and status positions, attitudes, conditions of communication, etc.
In their subjective perception, police officers should avoid stereotyping, i.e. assessments of social objects based on certain ideas and past experience. Stereotyping can lead to bias. Correct perception can be hampered by projection, unconscious, involuntary attribution to others of one’s own psychological, moral qualities and states, judgment of people by analogy with oneself. Also, distortion of perception occurs due to the influence of roles and statuses, which determine the specificity of the perception of qualities determined by the role prescription (the role of the investigator and the victim, witness, criminal). Very often, in the process of perceiving an interlocutor, a causal attribution may arise when a law enforcement officer does not have accurate information and is forced to make his own assumptions about the reasons and actions of other people - by attributing to him feelings, intentions, thoughts and motives of behavior.
The interactive side of communication is reflected in the interaction of people with each other, i.e. exchange of information, motives, actions. This side highlights those components that are associated with the interaction of people, with the direct organization of their joint activities. Thus, action is the main content of communication. When describing it, we most often use action terms.
Depending on the purpose, the whole variety of communication options can be divided into three main forms: role-playing, “mask” communication, and expressive. Role-based communication has the goal of performing joint actions, as well as obtaining information. It can be divided into instrumental, i.e. communication regarding joint activities, which is supported by relevant documents, and interpersonal, i.e. communication within the framework of an already established structure (the old employee was appointed boss and he had difficulties in management, because he is perceived as a colleague). Communication of “masks”, the main goal is to avoid conflict, when a person, depending on the situation, puts on the necessary “mask” of fun, sadness, seriousness, etc. Expressive communication is based on feelings, emotions, where each person strives to get his share of emotions.
The psychological specificity of professional communication among police officers is determined by the presence of difficulties in establishing communication: the conflictual nature of relationships, the formalization of communication, the presence of multiple goals in each act of communication, the specificity of the reasons for entering into communication, the specificity of the mental states of the participants in communication, the special importance of psychological contact.
3. Technologies for effectively influencing a communication partner in work situations
To establish effective communication, the actions of a law enforcement officer must be aimed at creating favorable conditions and psychological prerequisites for effective communication. The most important prerequisite for effective communication is the identification of the main representative system of a person interacting with a law enforcement officer, relying on it in the process of further contact. D. Grinder and R. Badler created the theory of neurolinguistic programming (NLP). It states that humans can have three main input channels. It is with their help that people obtain information about the world around them. They are vision, hearing and the kinesthetic sense (which is a complex of sensations based on touch, smell, body position in space, etc.). Each person is characterized by one of the most frequently used representative systems from among the three above systems. Such a system may conflict with the representative system of the communication partner. Insufficient consideration of the basic representative system of a person in the process of communication can lead to mutual misunderstanding and difficulties in interaction.
To build effective communication, a law enforcement officer must take into account the type of representative system of the communication partner. This is achieved by using predicates (words - representatives) of the partner system. To obtain the necessary information, it is advisable to use questions that take into account the type of main system of the communication partner. In the absence of such an approach, misunderstanding may arise and, as a result, ineffective communication.
Communication using different representational systems by partners is often very ineffective. This is explained by the fact that the communication process occurs in systems of various predicates. The task of a law enforcement officer at this stage seems to be the following:
a) determination of the leading modality of the communication partner;
b) addressing the partner with predicates that would reflect his main representative system.
Another important aspect of building professional communication for a law enforcement officer is building a communication plan. Such a plan should include the following parameters:
purpose of communication;
expected results;
place of direct contact;
techniques and methods of influencing a partner;
techniques for relieving tension in relationships and resolving emerging contradictions;
the need for the presence of third parties in the communication process;
regulatory requirements for the organization of communication;
methods of recording received information (protocols, transcripts, orders, etc.);
time of communication and duration of contact, etc.
For a police officer, it is recommended to develop a whole system of actions of both a preparatory and direct communicative nature. This is necessary to resolve important issues of organizing the work of law enforcement personnel. An example of such a development is the methodology for organizing the work of a subordinate, used in our department. It is built taking into account special organized communication between a manager and a subordinate in the presence of a consultant. The methodology consists of four successive stages of action:
) diagnosis by the manager of the level of organization of the work of the subordinate, the characteristics of his professional position;
) discussion with a consultant about the state of the subordinate’s work, developing a plan for direct communication with the subordinate and its main content;
) targeted communication with the manager and consultant with the employee, business conversation with him;
) summing up the results of direct communication with the subsequent drawing up by the manager, together with the consultant, of a forecast about the further activities of the subordinate, about the possibility of enrolling him in the reserve for promotion or transfer to another position, as well as discussing measures to assist him.
After planning professional communication, the law enforcement officer comes into direct contact with other persons (law enforcement officers, suspects, witnesses, etc.). The purpose of such contact may be to obtain certain information and influence the partner. Taking this into account, professional communication can be divided into two main categories: communication within the organization (communication with colleagues and heads of law enforcement agencies) and extra-organizational professional communication (communication with citizens, offenders, government officials, etc.). Each of these species has some distinctive features, but a number of similarities can also be found. Here are the general psychological patterns.
Considering the influence in the process of communication from the perspective of psychology, it can be argued that they are aimed at coordinating the position of the participants in communication. Impacts are the cause of decentration, that is, the acceptance of the point of view and position of another person, or partial or complete disagreement, contradictions and conflicts.
It seems necessary to note the importance of this moment of communication for resolving issues of consistency, eliminating contradictions, misunderstandings, disagreements and ultimately achieving unity of approaches to solving a particular problem. It is important to understand the specificity of influence techniques in the process of communication among law enforcement officials, determined by the goal of coordination and achieving an organizational effect in joint activities.
The specificity of extra-organizational communication between police officers (contacts with suspects, criminals, witnesses, victims, applicants, etc.) is that this process takes place within the framework of a detailed legal regulation. This process is characterized by the presence of additional difficulties associated with overcoming internal resistance on the part of a number of people, their lack of desire to cooperate, insincerity and lies, etc. It is as a result of these above-mentioned circumstances that communication conditions become difficult and law enforcement officers experience significant psychological stress. In connection with the above, methods and techniques for increasing the effectiveness of communication in difficult conditions are of practical interest. Developed within the framework of legal psychology, a method of contact between people in conditions of difficult communication, for example, during the interrogation of a suspect, proposes a step-by-step, stage-by-stage achievement of agreement between partners based on the use of a set of techniques. Of significant scientific and practical interest are methods and techniques for identifying lies and insincerity in the behavior and speech of people in contact with law enforcement officials. His ability to determine the degree of sincerity from the smallest details of speech statements, slips of the tongue, inconsistencies in the narration, as well as based on the non-verbal actions (gestures, glances, postures) of the interlocutor is the key to the successful solution of official tasks in the communication process.
Also, a very important point for building the correct dynamics of professional communication is the awareness by law enforcement officials of the results and consequences of contacts. The important thing is that interaction proceeds with an obligatory assessment of success or failure, success or failure. It is necessary to identify factors that facilitate or complicate communication.
Psychological literature pays great attention to how a person himself evaluates the nature of communication and relationships with other persons. Based on this, it is possible to develop specific recommendations for improving the accuracy of assessments of contacts with other people.
Conclusion
At the end of the work, it is necessary to draw the main conclusions. Professional communication is an important part of the activities of police officers. Professional and psychologically competent communication is necessary for police officers in the process of their work with citizens, colleagues, and management. The effectiveness of all his activities will depend on how correctly the professional communication of a police officer is structured.
Communication between law enforcement officials often presents various kinds of difficulties:
overload with instructions (including those not contained in job responsibilities);
there is no clear regulation of interaction;
divergence of interests among interacting officials;
insufficient level of preparation for teamwork;
functional isolation of individual employees and departments.
The presence of the above difficulties often causes the emergence of contradictions, disagreements and conflicts between interacting law enforcement officials.
Therefore, it seems absolutely necessary to study the basic psychological characteristics of professional communication of a law enforcement officer in order to increase his professional competence, more competently conduct their process of communication and interaction with others. To do this, it is necessary to study existing professional psychological techniques, study at various courses, and constantly improve your practical skills. In this sense, practical experience will be an indispensable assistant.
Thus, the process of mastering professional communication skills among police officers is complex and time-consuming, but each police officer must always strive for more and constantly hone their psychological skills.
List of used literature
1. Enikeev M.I. Psychological encyclopedic dictionary. - M.: Prospekt, 2010. - 560 p.
Karayani A.G., Tsvetkov V.L. Psychology of communication and negotiations in extreme conditions. - M.: Unity-Dana, 2012. - 247 p.
Lebedev I.B., Rodin V.F., Marinovskaya I.D., Tsvetkov V.L. Legal psychology // Ed. V.Ya. Kikotya. - M.: Unity-Dana, 2009. - 432 p.
Panfilova A.P. Theory and practice of communication: M.: Publishing center "Academy", 2007. - 288 p.
Svetlysheva O.Yu. Features of communication between police officers and different categories of citizens. - M.: Lawyer, 2009. - 435 p.
Tsvetkov V.L., Shevchenko V.M., Shamatava E.N. Psychology of operational-search activity. - M.: Unity-Dana, 2010. - 256 p.
Tsvetkov V.L. Legal psychology. Tutorial. - M.: Infra-M, 2011. - 608 p.
Tutoring
Need help studying a topic?
Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.
The peculiarities of the professional activities of employees of operational units are that they deal with people. In this way they are close to doctors, teachers, journalists, and representatives of other respected professions. However, the actions of internal affairs bodies are aimed at the legal regulation of human relations in society, therefore employees of operational units often act in situations of confrontation, when in order to establish justice, protect themselves or other people, prevent crime, etc. it is necessary to use forceful methods, i.e. “resist evil with strength.” In this regard, the problem of developing a sense of proportion and adequacy in the use of force by employees of operational units is of particular importance.
The use of physical force in the fight against evil may not make sense, but it is a secondary and subordinate means in the overall system of spiritual influence and education. It should be applied not when it can be applied, but when it is necessary to apply it; and wherever it is not necessary, it should not be used. It is important to understand that physical coercion and suppression are an extreme measure of struggle, and the scope of its application begins only where internal measures turn out to be untenable and insufficient. The limit from which physical influence becomes necessary is the “spiritual failure of the person being educated and the spiritual lack of weapons of the person raising.” According to Ilyin, someone who resists evil must:
Develop sensitivity and vigilance in recognizing evil and distinguishing it from phenomena similar to it in appearance; strive to achieve those paths and laws along which the life of evil flows in human souls, as well as techniques for its internal overcoming;
Always begin with spiritual means, descending to measures of external struggle only insofar as spiritual means turn out to be impracticable, invalid and insufficient;
When turning to physical influence, always search mentally and practically for that moment and those conditions under which the physical influence can be stopped without harming the spiritual struggle;
Constantly check the true, internal origins and motives of your personal struggle against evil.
On the last point, the author dwells in more detail, explaining that the question of resistance to evil can only be raised and explored on behalf of “living good.” Finding evil, “comprehending its quality and its nature and resisting it, accepting the fight against it, but not accepting it itself,” is the task of good.
Only the best people are able to bear the full weight of spiritual compromise, not become infected by contact with evil, and not be seduced by its imaginary gifts. The salvation of a warrior and ruler, writes Ilyin, is in the voice of conscience. They must firmly know where, in what and why their activities deviate from the covenants of righteousness, and allow this system of actions and institutions no more than is required by the need to fight evildoers. Only one who controls himself can wield strength and a sword, otherwise he will die from the sword not physically, but morally and spiritually: his strength will be wasted, his soul will be disfigured and the fight will be lost.
Thus, the professional training of law enforcement officers must be based on deep philosophical and psychological principles. In connection with this, the question arises about the ways, conditions and factors of formation of the personality of a police officer.
According to V.L. Makhlin, “modern man is formed slowly and, alas, alone,” he has no one to learn from and no one to build on. For the full and rapid formation of a professional’s personality, it is necessary to communicate with people from whom you can learn, who are examples in your work, who, based on life experience, can explain the contradictions that arise, etc.
Continuity of generations is an important factor in shaping the internal image of an Allied Forces employee. The absence of a senior, authoritative colleague causes irreparable damage to the younger generation of law enforcement officers.
Law enforcement is work that requires a lot of effort, patience, conscientiousness, knowledge and high responsibility based on unconditional compliance with the law.
Numerous positions, specialties, professions in internal affairs bodies (IAB) should be classified as complex types of professional activity.
The peculiarities of the police officers performing the emergency tasks assigned to them in themselves are already predisposing to physical and other impacts on the workers, as a result of which they can be injured or killed. Therefore, the problem of ensuring the personal safety of police officers has been and remains very relevant.
Police officers often perform their official duties in extreme conditions, putting their lives and health at risk.
Their work is characterized by a lack of time for making decisions and their implementation, the influence of strong stimuli on the personality, the dominance of negative emotions, increased responsibility and the need to take adequate measures.
The special social and psychological environment in which police officers operate is characterized by stress factors of increased intensity, as well as the specifics of social and communicative interaction. Therefore, along with social, economic, legal, administrative factors of service-related injuries in the internal affairs department and ensuring the personal safety of police officers, psychological factors are one of the determining factors.
A specific feature of the professional activities of employees of internal affairs bodies is that in the process of implementation, special knowledge from the field of personality psychology and individual differences, interpersonal interaction, communication, etc., as well as the corresponding skills and abilities based on them, are practically in demand. Possession of a system of theoretical and applied psychological knowledge, as well as their ability to implement this knowledge in practice, is one of the factors for optimizing and increasing the efficiency of professional activity. In modern conditions of law enforcement agencies, the psychological competence of specialists is increasingly becoming a professionally important quality.
In the governing documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in recent years, psychological training is considered as one of the most important links in the professional training of personnel for internal affairs bodies. Under these conditions, the role of psychological influences aimed at supporting the development of certain personality traits increases. The training of cadets of educational institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, according to the scientific developments of scientists, should be carried out in an organic relationship with the holistic development of the individual, taking into account all his personal properties and qualities, attitudes and motives, needs, ideals, life experience, general and professional knowledge, skills and abilities.
The most pressing requirements for young law enforcement officers include the formation of practical socio-psychological competence in them, which implies not only a stock of a complex of theoretical knowledge of psychological patterns that manifest themselves in people’s communication, but also the presence of strong skills and even the ability to use them in professional activities , as well as mastering the most effective means of solving communication problems in interpersonal interaction and in resolving conflict situations.
Currently, the development of science and the requirements of practice pose the task of mastering by cadets of universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia a system of theoretical and applied psychological knowledge, as well as the ability to implement this knowledge in practice. The significance of special psychological preparation of future employees of internal affairs bodies for activities is relevant, regardless of the specifics of their future activities. This is primarily due to the fact that the activities of law enforcement officers are associated with a high degree of risk, danger to life and health, and a perceived high personal responsibility for the results of performing official tasks.
Psychological training significantly expands the scientific horizons of cadets of universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, awakens in them the desire for a deeper mastery of professional knowledge in the field of psychology, forms the skills of their practical use in law enforcement practice, since it is as close as possible to solving problems of the human factor in the field of relations regulated by law. Turning to the problem of effective methods to stimulate the growth and development of the individual, it is logical to come to the assumption that one of the most convenient, constructive, fast-acting forms of psychological work with future lawyers at the university is a specially organized training for the development of professional self-awareness and personality, including business and organizational and managerial games, discussion methods of group decision-making, etc. Most of the existing types of training are aimed at overcoming the difficulties that hinder the optimal development of certain aspects of the personality and its effective life, the disclosure of the internal potentials of a person and the expansion of his self-consciousness, it is the training that allows you to realize all the necessary psychological conditions for the development of professional and personal self-consciousness of students.
Considering the problem of professional and psychological training of employees of internal affairs bodies, it must be remembered that the activities of police officers require a special kind of knowledge, skills and abilities. Their application is carried out in a wide variety of activities and largely depends on the specifics of the content being studied, which is essential for understanding the role and place of professional psychological training in the overall structure of preparedness of cadets of universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The content of all types and forms of professional psychological training is such a psychological correction of the employee’s personality that would allow him to fulfill the assigned tasks of his official activity as efficiently and efficiently as possible, with minimal expenditure of nervous energy and in minimal time.
Osintseva Angela Valentinovna 2009Some instructions, programs, special educational and practical aids intended specifically for the deputy corps. The following stages of training could be introduced as necessary, taking into account the specialization of deputies and existing gaps in their knowledge.
From the above it follows that MPiPPD is a modern psychological-professional, applied, specially organized training for deputies. It is formed and increased during the entire deputy term. Its goal is to prepare for overcoming psychological difficulties in the course of professional parliamentary activities, to form professional and psychological preparedness among deputies and thereby ensure the high-quality adoption of bills and legislative decisions.
LITERATURE
1. Legislative process. Concept. Institutes. Stages: scientific and practical manual / resp. ed. Doctor of Law sciences, prof. R. F. Vasiliev. M., 2000.
2. Kerimov D. A. Legislative technology. M., 2000.
3. Spencer G. Sins of legislators // Sociological studies. M., 1992. No. 2.
4. Spencer G. Sociology as a subject of study // Western European sociology of the 19th century. M., 1996.
5. Tarasov A. S. Government of Russia and legislative activity // National interests. 2002. No. 3(20).
PROFESSIONALLY IMPORTANT PERSONAL QUALITIES OF AN ITS EMPLOYEE DEPENDING ON THE TYPE OF ACTIVITY
A. V. Osintseva, O. V. Garmanova
The article presents the results of the study, which, according to the authors, allows us to describe the professionally important qualities of police officers depending on their specialty. Despite the fact that in the specialized literature on this issue there is a description of professiograms of various specializations, it is important to study the value-motivational characteristics of a specialist’s personality.
Key words: professionally important personality traits of a police officer, professional profiles of employees of internal affairs bodies, official activities, value-motivational characteristics of the individual.
The successful fulfillment of official tasks by employees of the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the improvement of the process of professional development of a specialist’s personality are directly related to the formation of high moral qualities in officers, as well as the psychological readiness of the individual to comply with official discipline and carry out professional functions in the specific conditions of official activity. The organizational structure of relationships in police department teams (strict hierarchy and subordination) requires strict regulation of the relationships of subjects of official activities among themselves and with direct participants in administrative and criminal proceedings, enshrined in job descriptions, charters and other norms.
tive documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The whole range of these relationships puts forward serious requirements for the personality of an employee of the internal affairs bodies, his value-motivational, emotional-volitional, intellectual and other psychological components.
There are socio-psychological features of the activities of an internal affairs officer and the necessary professionally significant personal properties and qualities that depend on the type of professional activity carried out (type of specialization) and ensure the effectiveness of official activities in specific conditions. Let us dwell on this factor in detail, since its content has a great influence on the formation of personal and professional qualities of an employee of the Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (Table 1).
All of these specific psychological features require the use of relevant psychodiagnostic procedures in the study of a candidate for study at an educational institution of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and service in the internal affairs bodies.
In this regard, in order to study the possibilities of differentiated professional and psychological selection of candidates for training in universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and develop recommendations for the use of specific methods for studying professionally important qualities, a pilot study was conducted on the basis of the Tyumen Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, aimed at studying the views of employees of various specializations ( precinct officers, investigators and police officers) about the image of a successful employee in the relevant type of professional activity and the characteristics of the orientation of the personality of an internal affairs officer.
The described professiograms of various specializations are considered traditional and are found in many works on legal psychology (V. M. Vasiliev (2003), Yu. V. Chufarovsky (2005), M. I. Enikeev (2005), V. V. Romanov (2000) and etc.). However, the presented psychological characteristics of activity do not include a detailed description of such an important personality component as the value-motivational characteristics of a specialist, which underlie the determination of professional behavior.
In this regard, the personality orientation of a specialist from the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia was chosen as the object of study in the work. The subject of the study is the motives, interests, desires, motivations of the real self-image and the ideal image of an employee of the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The purpose of the study is to study the personality orientation of a specialist from internal affairs bodies depending on his specialization (investigative officer, district police officer and investigator).
Objectives of the study: 1) provide a brief theoretical analysis of the problem of psychological characteristics of the professional activity of an employee of internal affairs bodies, describe professional profiles of the main specialties; 2) develop a research tool aimed at achieving the set research goal; 3) collect empirical material; 4) show different
differences in professionally important qualities in different groups of subjects depending on the type of specialization; 5) analyze the results and formulate conclusions.
Characteristics of the sample. The total number of study participants was 51 people, of which 13 were police detectives, 21 were district police officers, and 17 were investigators. Of the total sample, 19 are women, 32 are men. The general sample consisted of employees who successfully fulfill their official duties, with work experience in the internal affairs department from 1 to 16 years, in the position - from 1 to 12 years. All participants in the empirical study were divided into three groups in accordance with the specified specializations.
Research methods. To achieve the goal of studying the personality orientation of a specialist from internal affairs bodies, depending on his specialization (investigator, district police officer and investigator), a questionnaire was developed aimed at studying the psychological characteristics of the individual, professional motivation and ideas about a successful police officer.
From our point of view, it is necessary to study personal and professional qualities from the point of view of shaping the orientation of the personality of a police officer. In the structure of orientation, a special place should be given to personal meaning and the individual’s ideas about the world, life in general and professional activity in particular. The deep structures of human consciousness are semantic structures. The semantic sphere of a person is alive, constantly
a changing system that determines the future behavior and manifestations of the individuality of the subjects of activity. In this regard, it seems important to form in the process of educating and training police officers a personal, subjective positive meaning for them of the entire service, its specific types and the immediate process of service. Activities and service in the police department will be successful only if it is significant for everyone personally, if it is personally attractive, and also has its own subjective meaning for everyone. The study was aimed at studying the system of subjective ideas about the professional activity of an employee of internal affairs bodies, depending on different types of professional activity. As an additional method for studying the personality of a successful specialist, a psychodiagnostic technique was chosen, aimed at studying the type of temperament and testing assumptions about possible dependencies between the type of specialization and the type of temperament.
Research progress. After developing a questionnaire and preparing forms, the collection of empirical material was organized on the basis of the psychological service of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate in the Tyumen region, which took place from April 1 to May 15, 2009, after which the data was calculated for different groups of subjects. The results of applying the questionnaire survey method to three groups of subjects (successful operational officers, local commissioners and investigators), aimed at studying the motives of the real image and the ideal image of an employee of the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia are presented in Table. 2-5.
Table 1
The main personality qualities of the cadet and listener, formed in the process of training and educational work
Features of the social system of the internal affairs department The main personality traits of an internal affairs affairs officer
Official activities Personal and civic responsibility, discipline, the ability to make the right decisions, the presence of strong-willed mental states (purposefulness, self-control, endurance, determination), developed analytical thinking, a high level of intellectual development and cognitive activity, a sense of duty, sense of justice, socially approved life values, organizational skills
Unity of command and subordination Awareness of the need to conscientiously fulfill orders and orders of commanders and superiors, obtain moral approval of their actions and actions from commanders, follow the moral example of senior comrades, heads of units, responsibility and discipline
Collectivism Prevention of actions and actions that will be condemned by collective opinion, statutes and laws; communicative competence, high level of socialization; obtaining moral approval of their actions and actions from the comrades in the unit, self-affirmation among colleagues by their deeds, the need for "healthy" rivalry, the desire to be better
Humanism Awareness of oneself as a person performing a special socially significant activity; humanity, tolerance, respect for people, compassion
Emotional tension and emotional overload A sense of self-preservation in a reasonable combination with a desire for risk, preserving the life and health of comrades and commanders, intransigence in the fight against crime, neuropsychological endurance, physical health, personal safety skills
Military rituals Following the traditions of the unit, return to faith and national revival; restoration of the traditions of the Russian officer corps, etc.
Main professional motives for the activities of police officers, %
Opinion of respondents Operational officer District commissioner Investigator
Opportunity to benefit society 69 24 41
Fighting crime 54 48 35
Social security and stability 38 67 56
Sense of duty and responsibility 23 48 18
Satisfaction with the results of your work 23 19 41
Opportunity to improve your knowledge, skills and abilities 15 48 47
Opportunity to experience new experiences, a sense of risk 8 19 18
Family tradition 8 19 12
Note. The survey participants identified the highest indicators of the personality characteristics of a police officer.
Table 3
Main personal motives for the activities of police officers, %
Possibility of self-realization 46 43 56
Career advancement 46 33 35
Having a stable job 46 14 41
Satisfaction from a job well done 31 14 12
To be needed by people 23 19 29
Receiving material rewards 15 38 6
Be a law-abiding citizen, lead a socially approved lifestyle 15 24 6
Satisfying the need for communication (like communicating with people, developing communication skills, etc.) 15 14 35
Achieve recognition and respect 15 10 18
Opportunity to be an example for others 8 14 18
Ability to avoid trouble in terms of compliance with laws, knowledge of the law 8 0 6
Table 4
Value orientations of the personality of a police officer, significance rank (from 1 to 10)
Family 1 1 1
Health 2 5 3
Love 3 8 2
Friends 5 3 5
Interesting and socially significant work 6 6 5
Service team 6 9 8
Material security 7 2 6
Career 8 7 7
Entertainment and recreation 9 9 9
Table 5
Type of personality temperament of police officers of different types of specialization, %
Temperament type Operational officer District commissioner Investigator
Choleric 31 29 29
Sanguine 25 26 25
Phlegmatic 21 22 24
Melancholic 23 23 22
Thus, according to the results of a study of the personality orientation of a specialist of internal affairs bodies, depending on specialization (investigative officer, district commissioner,
nal police and investigator) the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The leading motives for the activity of an operative worker are the fight against crime, striving
the ability to benefit society, the opportunity for self-realization, career growth and stable work.
2. The leading motives for the activities of district commissioners are the fight against crime, social security and stability, a sense of responsibility and duty, the opportunity for self-improvement, and self-realization.
3. The leading motives for the activities of investigators are social security and job stability, the opportunity to improve themselves, and self-realization.
4. The system of values and interests for the three groups participating in the survey does not differ significantly: family relationships come first for operational officers, district police officers and investigators. In second place among operational workers is health, among district police officers - material security, among investigators - love (probably, gender played a role here, since the group of investigators mainly consists of women, and district police officers and detectives - of men). Third place goes to friends in the group of district police officers, love in the group of operational officers, and health in the group of investigators.
5. As expected, no relationship was found between the type of temperament and the type of specialization (among district police officers, investigators and operatives, an approximately equal distribution was found between all four types of higher nervous activity (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic).
Based on the results of applying the questionnaire survey method to three groups of subjects (investigative officers, local police officers and investigators), aimed at studying ideas about the ideal (successful) employee of the internal affairs bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, it is possible to present a generalized image of a police officer who successfully performs official duties.
Features of intellectual development and mental forms of reflection and self-control:
Objectively and quickly perceives information;
Focused at work, not distracted, diligent;
Attentive to detail, able to quickly switch attention;
Able to accurately reproduce all details of events, all types of memory are developed;
Developed logical thinking;
Thinking is flexible, fast, clear;
Able to summarize information;
Developed imagination;
Able to reconstruct events according to the situation;
Speech is confident, distinct, logically consistent, loud, expressive, literate, accompanied by gestures and facial expressions.
Features of the emotional sphere:
The predominance of a sense of responsibility, duty, satisfaction with the results of one’s work, sympathy;
Emotional stability;
Good, positive mood, balance.
Character traits that appear:
In the process of performing work: responsibility, dedication, conscientiousness, honesty, fairness, efficiency, perseverance, etc.;
In relation to other people: respectful, fair, objective, understanding, responsive, restrained, calm, etc.;
In relation to oneself: self-criticism, adequacy, demandingness, self-love, respect, patience, sense of self-control;
In relation to the world and society: respect, kindness, active life position, a sense of need for society, a sense of patriotism, patience, possession of appropriate moral qualities, etc.
Personality orientation:
Needs and motives: a sense of need for society in the fight against crime; be an example for others; get recognition for your work; self-realization, sense of duty, responsibility, etc.;
Goals and dreams: career, self-improvement, realizing one’s abilities, fighting crime, gaining recognition, being fair in everything, being respected, etc.;
Values and beliefs: have a family, fight crime, love and defend the Motherland, be moral, love and be loved, etc.;
Interests and hobbies: sports, recreation with family, with a team, active recreation, communication, reading various literature.
The exceptional complexity of the activities of the Department of Internal Affairs dictates high requirements for the professional preparedness and training of each employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. This activity has a reverse impact on police officers as subjects of activity, developing their knowledge, skills, abilities and abilities, forming certain characterological qualities. The results obtained outlined some trends in an in-depth study of the ideas of police officers about professional activities. However, the analysis of the study does not allow us to draw reliable conclusions about the image of a police officer. Therefore, the designated problem field should become the object of subsequent empirical research.
Any professional activity makes certain demands on a person and leaves a unique imprint on his personality and entire lifestyle. In order to determine what personal qualities that determine the effectiveness of professional activity an employee of internal affairs bodies should have, it is necessary to subject this activity itself to a psychological analysis, identify its specific features, and reveal its structure. Clarification of the patterns of professional activity allows not only to study it, but also to develop a system of organizational measures aimed at its improvement.
WITH Service in the internal affairs bodies is accompanied by extreme stress; activities take place in tense, difficult conditions associated with the use of weapons, physical force, and special means. Not only the results of professional activity, but also the life and health of employees depend on the integrity and professional skills of personnel.
Increasing complexity of the tasks to be solved, recognition of the dominant importance of legal and moral principles in the operational activities of personnel require the search for new approaches to ensuring high efficiency of professional selection and training of employees of internal affairs bodies.
Psychological characteristics of the activities of employees of internal affairs bodies
The psychological characteristics of the activities of employees of internal affairs bodies have now been studied in some detail in legal psychology. At the same time, the development of this problem proceeded both in terms of a psychological analysis of the structure of the professional activity of employees of internal affairs bodies, and in terms of the psychological characteristics of the complex of psychological characteristics inherent in it.
According to the authors who conducted these studies (V.L. Vasilyev, A.V. Dulov, V.E. Konovalova, A.R. Ratinov, A.M. Stolyarenko, etc.), the activity of an internal affairs officer is characterized by the following specific psychological characteristics.
Firstly, this legal regulation of activities employees of internal affairs bodies is one of the most specific features of professional activity in this area. The activities of employees are strictly regulated by legal norms (legislative acts, regulatory documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, etc.). This feature distinguishes the work of employees of the internal affairs bodies from numerous branches of human practice, where the performance of work is determined by general plans or instructions and creates a wide opportunity for the free implementation of their personal ideas about the most effective organization of labor. Legal regulation subordinates the activities of the employee to the order strictly established by the norms of the law. Failure to perform or improper performance by an employee of their official duties is always a violation of a particular law. All this ultimately gives rise to increased employee responsibility for their decisions and actions.
This, however, does not mean that the employee is not free in his will, in the choice of means of carrying out activities, its most rational and effective organization. Among the psychological features of the professional activity of employees of the internal affairs bodies, one should also include the presence of a wide tactical scope, which is given to them within the framework of the norms of the law and professional morality.
Another psychological feature of the activities of employees of internal affairs bodies is the presence of authority. In the interests of the case, employees are given the right, in necessary cases, to intrude into the personal lives of people, to find out circumstances that they often try to hide from others, to enter the homes of citizens, to limit, in necessary cases, the freedom of individual citizens and even to deprive it. The psychological state of an employee vested with this power is determined primarily by a high degree of responsibility, and the use of his powers involves solving a number of mental problems that make it possible to determine the necessity and reasonableness of actions and their legal basis. This is often associated with the need to settle on one of the options and is therefore characterized by particular tension. The ability to wisely and legally use the granted power is one of the most important professional requirements for employees of internal affairs bodies. To a large extent, the legality and appropriateness of the use of power depends on the personal qualities of the employee.
An important psychological feature of the professional activity of employees is the constant confrontation and opposition interested persons. This gives the employee’s activities in detecting, investigating and preventing crimes the character of a struggle, which sometimes takes very acute forms. The need to overcome dangerous situations, eliminate obstacles that are specifically created in the employee’s path, cause various emotional reactions in him, require constant volitional tension and active mental activity. In conditions of active confrontation, the need arises for constant complex intellectual work, encoding one’s goals, and disguising actual social roles.
The next characteristic feature of professional activity is communication skills as the ability to communicate with a wide range of environments. It is multifaceted and exclusive. The versatility of an employee’s communication skills lies in the fact that he communicates with representatives of different age categories, with people of different professions occupying different legal status. This requires knowledge of human psychology in general and the psychological foundations of communication in particular. An employee’s sociability is a trait necessary for the proper organization of various investigative, investigative and preventive activities.
A distinctive feature of an employee’s sociability is that it requires transformation. The need for this is explained by the importance of establishing psychological contact with all persons falling within the scope of his activities.
The specific features of an employee’s professional activity include: lack of time and overload in his work. Efficiency and speed are among the basic principles of solving and investigating crimes. The longer a criminal is at large, the more opportunities he has to evade responsibility, destroy traces of his criminal activities, and hide from investigation. Time is always on his side. Delay in investigation leads to failure.
On the other hand, the lack of time is manifested in the need to comply with procedural and other deadlines that are allocated for the investigation of a criminal case, consideration of citizens’ applications, etc. Because of this, the employee is constantly in a tense state. The fact that in other types of activity is characteristic only of "emergency situations" is common in the work of an employee of the internal affairs bodies.
Tension is also associated with the great physical and mental stress experienced by the employee due to high extremity his activities, with actions in a conflict situation, with the impact of various kinds of stress factors, irregular working hours, the presence of a negative emotional coloring of activity, since the employee has to deal with manifestations of human grief, difficult conditions of his official activity.
And of course, the professional activity of an employee is distinguished by a pronounced educational character which requires not only a diverse solution of mental problems of various plans and difficulties, but also the organization of their practical implementation. At the same time, purely mental activity, with the aim of building various versions, drawing up plans for the implementation of operational and service activities and work plans as a whole, is combined with the practical organization of work that implements mental schemes and decisions.
In the professional activities of employees of internal affairs bodies, the following main elements can be distinguished: cognitive, constructive, organizational and communicative activities. Of course, in the real work of employees, each of these structural components is not found in its pure form, they are all carried out in an organic unity.
Cognitive activity. It is difficult to overestimate its importance for all employee activities. Without the implementation of cognitive activity, it is impossible to achieve any goal of the fight against crime, without knowledge, neither the activity as a whole, nor any of its types indicated above can be realized. Only as a result of the process of cognition does it become possible to purposefully carry out other actions of the employee.
In order to solve the problems of combating crime, the cognitive activity of an employee must ensure the establishment of facts, circumstances, causal dependencies related to events of the present, past, and future time. For example, on the collection, analysis, generalization of information to identify persons of operational interest, and anticipation of their illegal actions in the future, all work on the prevention of crimes, as well as work on the disclosure of committed crimes, is based.
Taking into account the complexity, diversity, variety of tasks solved by the employee, the insufficiency and often inconsistency of their conditions, the variability of the initial data, the presence of elements of surprise, etc., it is possible with good reason to attribute the employee's cognitive activity to creative, and the main form of providing knowledge in it call practical creative thinking.
Constructive activity. It is understood as mental activity aimed at planning actions to solve, investigate, prevent crimes, search for hidden criminals, etc. If, when implementing cognitive activity, thinking mainly strives to answer the questions: what is still unknown, what needs to be additionally discovered, found to solve a specific problem, then in constructive activity the planning of the stages of cognitive activity itself is carried out, i.e. it answers the question: in what sequence will we search for the unknown. In other words, an employee’s search and constructive activities are two sides of a single thinking process that characterize its different stages.
Organizational activities. It aims to provide optimal conditions for the implementation of all other types of professional activities of the employee. Its content is the management of the processes of detection, investigation, and prevention of crimes, which is manifested in operational management, accounting and control, and maintaining interaction between the participants in these processes. It consists of both the transfer and exchange of information, and the organization of the actions of other persons who, by the nature of their duties, must carry out the instructions of the employee.
Communication activities. As noted above, an employee’s professional activity is characterized by extensive communication. His communicative activity consists of obtaining the necessary information through communication, i.e. direct verbal contact with others in order to solve practical operational and service tasks. In order to influence people in the process of communication, the employee’s personality must harmoniously combine sufficiently high intelligence and erudition with a strong will, as well as a set of personal properties that determine his human attractiveness.
Psychological characteristics of the personality of an employee of internal affairs bodies
The psychological characteristics of employees of internal affairs bodies have long been the object of research by psychologists. The very purpose of such a social institution as the police determines special requirements for the personality of each employee. Constantly being in an aggressive and crime-oriented environment, long working hours, access to weapons and the right to use them cannot but affect the adequacy of reactions. Currently available research in the field of psychology of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a rule, concerns the study of their reliability, aggressiveness, and ability to control the use of weapons. The structure of the divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is wide, and affiliation with them affects the types of activities, volume, frequency, emotional involvement, the nature of contacts with the population, etc.
The development of professional competence of police officers is determined by the difficulties associated with time constraints, financial, intellectual, informational and other human resources. A period of adaptation to the conditions of service in the internal affairs department is highlighted, during which the following key competencies are developed: operational investigative, legal, organizational, analytical, communicative and social. They implement the following main directions: relating to oneself as a person, as a subject of life; relating to human interaction with other people; related to professional activity. Professional competence is defined as an integral property of a person, characterizing his desire and ability to realize his potential (knowledge, skills, experience, personal qualities, etc.) for successful activities in the law enforcement field. The process of developing the professional competence of police officers is defined as achieving compliance of the professional and personal development of an employee with the requirements of official activity and the needs of the individual himself in the motivated performance of his official, operational and social duties with a high consciousness of public duty.
The multiplicity of tasks facing the police leads to the development of multifunctionality in activities, the identification of groups of employees performing specific functions. The activities of various police officers, which differ in the methods used, coincide in their target parameters. The link that unites them and forces them to interact closely is the presence of a single object of activity - the criminal (offender).
Even the most general overview of the basic psychological characteristics and structural elements of an employee’s professional activity shows how complex and multifaceted his activities are. She makes many different demands on him, among which one of the most important is the possession developed professionally significant personality traits .
First of all, they include:
professional and psychological orientation of his personality;
psychological stability;
developed volitional qualities (the ability to control oneself in difficult situations, courage, courage, reasonable risk-taking);
well-developed communication skills (the ability to quickly establish contact with various categories of people, establish and maintain trusting relationships);
the ability to exert a psychological influence on people when solving various types of operational and official tasks;
role-playing skills, ability to transform;
developed professionally significant cognitive qualities (professional observation and attentiveness, professionally developed memory, creative imagination);
professionally developed thinking, a tendency to intense mental work, quick wits, developed intuition;
speed of reaction, ability to navigate in complex environments.
These qualities are not inherent in a person initially. Their formation and development is a long and intense process, but this is a necessary condition for the professional development of an internal affairs officer. The absence or insufficient development of these personality traits of an employee interferes with the normal implementation of his functional duties, generate errors in his activities, and cause processes of professional disadaptation and professional deformation of the personality. In this regard, professional and psychological training of employees is of great importance, one of the purposes of which is to develop these qualities in employees.
Psychological training of internal affairs officers
One of the leading areas for improving the activities of internal affairs bodies is psychological training of employees. The purpose of such training is to develop their readiness to act professionally, competently, clearly, with high performance in any difficult conditions of official activity.
Operational and official activities place special demands on the personal qualities of employees, primarily those that are professionally important. The peculiarities of this activity require the development of emotional and volitional stability among employees, the formation of their psychological reliability when exposed to stress factors.
The main tasks of psychological training are
in that, to:
- increase the psychological resistance of employees of internal affairs bodies to the effects of stress factors and their combinations typical for internal affairs bodies;
- develop psychological qualities in employees, form special characteristics of skills and abilities that contribute to the highly effective performance of all professional actions in any difficult and dangerous conditions of operational activity.
Psychological preparedness is a complex component of the professional skills of employees. This is a set of formed and developed psychological characteristics of an employee that meet the specific and important psychological characteristics of operational activities and serve as one of the necessary prerequisites for its implementation. It consists of four groups of components:
professional and psychological orientation and sensitivity of the employee (desire, interest and ability to understand the psychological aspects of situations and people with whom he deals, the ability to understand them);
preparedness an employee on the psychological aspects of the effectiveness of professional actions and tactics, manifested in an understanding of the psychological conditions for the effectiveness of professional actions and the ability to ensure their creation; skillful use of psychological means of implementing professional actions (speech and non-speech), in the skillful application of the entire complex of psychological techniques that ensure higher efficiency in solving operational and service tasks;
developed professional observation and memory employee (includes the ability to apply psychologically based techniques and rules to increase the effectiveness of professional observation, developed professional attentiveness, training of the senses and perceptions, training in quick, complete and accurate memorization, good retention in memory and correct reproduction of information significant for the tasks being solved);
psychological stability (expressed in the employee’s ability to act calmly and confidently in psychologically difficult, emotionally intense, dangerous and responsible situations of operational work).
Psychological preparedness significantly increases the professional skills of an employee. Scientific data and existing positive experience indicate the need to introduce special tasks, forms and methods of purposefully increasing psychological preparedness in the vocational training system. Psychological training is now an important type of professional training in internal affairs bodies; it is a specially organized, targeted process of influencing employees to form, develop and activate the necessary qualities that determine the successful, effective implementation of operational and official tasks.
The psychological preparation itself is determined by the characteristics of the employees’ work activities. In accordance with this, the content of psychological training should be characterized by a clearly defined professional orientation.
TO content of psychological training employees include the following:
formation of psychological readiness to fight crime;
development of psychological orientation in various aspects of specific operational and service activities;
formation and development of professionally significant cognitive qualities;
improvement and development of skills and abilities to establish psychological contact with various categories of citizens;
formation of role behavior skills in various situations of operational and official activities;
improving the ability to apply psychological and pedagogical methods of influence in complex, conflict situations of communication with citizens;
formation of psychological stability of the ability to control oneself in tense situations of operational and official activity;
development of positive emotional and volitional personality traits, training employees in self-regulation and self-government techniques;
formation of volitional activity and skills of volitional actions;
preparation for mental overload at work.
In our opinion, formation of psychological readiness to fight crime is the most important thing in psychological preparation. The main thing here is the formation of the professional orientation of employees, the development of their strong professional interests in their activities. This also presupposes the formation in employees of intolerance to all kinds of offenses, a strong habit of unconditional compliance with legal norms, and a heightened sense of truth, justice and legality.
Development of psychological orientation in various aspects of specific operational and service activities involves familiarizing employees with the basics of psychology, developing their skills and habits to take into account the psychology of people and groups in their work. Orientation in the psychological aspects of operational work activities presupposes knowledge and consideration by employees of the psychological characteristics of the ongoing investigative, operational-search and other actions.
Professionally significant cognitive qualities ensure the effectiveness of the cognitive activity of employees. Such qualities include professional sensitivity, perception, observation, memory, thinking, imagination. Special exercises and training to develop these qualities require employees to master basic techniques and knowledge of certain rules for increasing the efficiency of memorizing, preserving and reproducing professionally significant information, developing logical thinking and creative imagination. Conducted studies (A.M. Stolyarenko, A.A. Volkov, O.E. Saparin, our own) show that the purposeful development of the listed qualities through practical exercises and special training can improve their development indicators by 2-3 times.
Improvement and development skills and abilities to establish psychological contact with various categories of citizens are also very significant for psychological preparation. The activities of an internal affairs officer are unthinkable without constant communication with various categories of citizens (victims, witnesses, suspects, persons under investigation, etc.). The quality of operationally significant information received depends on the ability of employees to communicate with them, establish psychological contact, and trusting relationships, which in turn affects the success of the activity as a whole. During psychological training, employees must master a system of methods and techniques for establishing psychological contact. They must have the ability to quickly establish contact with strangers and win them over, the ability to listen to people, and the ability to overcome psychological barriers in the communication process. Psychological training involves employees learning certain rules that make it easier to establish psychological contact.
A necessary component of the professional skills of an internal affairs officer is skills of role behavior in various situations of operational activities , they are used to obtain information necessary for solving or preventing crimes. In this regard, during psychological training, employees must develop the ability to disguise their affiliation with internal affairs bodies, their true qualities and states, and the goals of communication.
Needs to be developed and improved the ability to apply psychological and pedagogical methods of influence in complex, conflict situations of communication with citizens. Such situations are the most typical for the activities of employees of internal affairs bodies, therefore it becomes very important to develop in employees the ability to neutralize a conflict situation, teaching them how to resolve conflicts. The effectiveness of employees largely depends on the skillful use of certain methods of psychological and pedagogical influence on people, such as persuasion, suggestion, coercion, stimulation. Employees must also develop skills in using various tactical methods of behavior in situations of conflict behavior, including using a conflict situation for operational purposes.
In everyday practical work, employees are exposed to many unfavorable psychological circumstances that can affect the quality of professional performance. AND psychological stability, ability to control oneself in tense situations of operational activities are considered as one of the most important indicators of psychological preparedness, which is manifested in the ability of employees not to succumb to the influence of negative circumstances. What is important here is the formation of knowledge and skills to anticipate these difficulties when solving operational and service tasks. The formation of psychological stability contributes to the training of employees in the impeccable performance of professional actions in conditions of maximum psychological difficulties, which can be achieved by simulating tension during training and practical exercises.
Development of positive emotional and volitional personality traits, training employees in self-regulation and self-government techniques is also an integral part of psychological preparation. The formation of psychological stability and the ability to control oneself in tense situations involves the development in employees of certain emotional and volitional personality traits, such as responsibility, resistance to failure, propensity and tolerance for risk, self-control, endurance, etc. An employee must possess techniques for self-control of behavior, manage his behavior and emotions. During classes and training, employees must master the techniques of self-regulation, relieving nervous tension, and activating internal resources to complete the task.
Psychological preparation includes formation of volitional activity and skills of volitional actions . In practical activities, employees of internal affairs bodies have to face various difficulties and obstacles that make it difficult to carry out their work efficiently, and sometimes even prevent them from achieving their goals. In these situations, they have to show volitional activity, encouraging them to overcome these difficulties and obstacles. The development of volitional skills is facilitated by the inclusion in the process of training of certain elements and obstacles that impede the implementation of the task. The experience of volitional activity accumulated in the process of such training will influence the development of will and volitional qualities of the individual.
Preparation for mental overload at work is also necessary and advisable, since the activities of employees of internal affairs bodies are characterized by the fact that various factors affecting them are often stressful in nature, leading to excessive stress and overload of the nervous system.
This, in turn, affects the effectiveness of their activities. Therefore, employees should be familiar with the basic patterns of these processes and techniques (in particular, for example, psychoregulatory training techniques) that allow them to quickly restore performance and relieve excessive mental stress.
Conclusion
The professional activity of a police officer belongs to the category of “complex” professions that place very high psychological and psychophysiological demands on employees.
The personality of an internal affairs officer is complex and multifaceted. It develops and is formed mainly as a result of the interaction of many factors, but the main and determining factor is the personality of the person who has chosen the profession of an employee of the internal affairs bodies as one of his main life goals.
Forming the personality of a police officer is a complex process of transforming the requirements of modern legislation and relevant departmental regulations into beliefs, habits, personal qualities, skills and abilities of a person who has chosen to work in the internal affairs bodies. Of great importance in shaping the personality of a police officer is educational training and professional activities, which impose a complex set of requirements on his personal qualities and professional skills, developing and consolidating them in the personality structure.
Knowledge of mental patterns, the use of certain psychological methods in the process of legal activity facilitates a person’s work, helps him regulate and build relationships with other people, better understand the motives of people’s actions, cognize objective reality, correctly evaluate it and use the results of knowledge in practice.
All this is necessary for a police officer in order to carry out the functions assigned to him as efficiently as possible and with the least loss of his own emotional balance.
Irina Semchuk,
Lecturer, Department of Legal Psychology
Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia
