THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC TRUST IN THE POLICE: IS IT AN OBJECTIVE CRITERION FOR EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE POLICE?

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of administrative and legal aspects of certain problematic issues of the objectivity of the main criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of police bodies and units – the level of public trust in the police. The author came to the conclusion that the level of public trust in the National Police should be an auxiliary criterion both in relation to a specific police officer and to the police body and unit as a whole and has an applied nature to the assessment given by the police leadership. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the assessment of the level of trust of the population may differ significantly from the actual level of trust due to the level of legal awareness, law-abidingness of the respondents, the level of perception of the police due to stereotypes planted in the mind of a person through the media, the Internet, as well as errors (distortions) of survey results. It is claimed that the definition in Part 3 of Art. 11 of the Law of Ukraine "On the National Police", which states that the level of public trust in the police is the main criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of police bodies and units, does not fully correspond to the essence of the National Police, does not target policemen of all levels to the quality of the performance of police tasks and functions. As a result, the police is aimed at gaining the trust of the population, and not at the proper performance of its tasks and functions. At the same time, the trust of individual representatives of the population can be obtained through inaction or violation of the law on the part of the police. It is emphasized that the level of trust of the population in the police is an additional criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of the activities of bodies and units, which results precisely from the high-quality performance of tasks and functions of the police. It is proposed to define in the Law of Ukraine "On the National Police" that the main criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of the activities of police officers, police bodies and units is the completeness and quality of the performance of police tasks defined in Art. 2 of the specified Law.