The use of natural training grounds as the indicator of the formed legal culture of cadets of universities of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service

Introduction. Current changes in the society and the state set new requirements to the quality of training of a novice officer of the penitentiary system of the Russian Federation. The formation of legal culture of an officer of the penitentiary system is the guarantee of his effective professional activity, which meets the challenges of the modern reality. The objective is to substantiate the urgency of training the student of the departmental institute through formation of separate components of legal culture. Materials and Methods. General theoretical methods of research are used, including analysis, synthesis, comparison, summarizing, as well practical ones - interview and observation. The study covers 96 cadets of the Vladimir Law Institute of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service. Results and Discussion. The review of scientific sources made it possible to specify the essence, ensemble, concept and content of the main components of the basic properties of the phenomenon of legal culture of an officer of the penitentiary system. Under consideration are the problems of completing the students’ competencies determined by the educational standard through the formed knowledge, abilities and skills, which do not always reflect activity, volitional and reflexive aspects of the students’ work. The author analyzes stressful factors, which influence the effectiveness of the educational process, faced by the cadets at the lessons on the natural training grounds. Conclusions. Studying the students’ mistakes enabled the author to clarify their relationship with behavioural, volitional and reflexive components of legal culture of a penitentiary officer. The solution could be the correction of the students’ methodical maintenance and practical implementation of law enforcement and pre-graduation practice with consideration of individual problem areas in professional readiness of every cadet.