Professional image of a law enforcement officer (based on empirical sociological research)

The paper considers the problem of the inner side of the professional image (self-image) of law enforcement officers. It is noted that in the practice of mass surveys, the emphasis is mainly on monitoring the external evaluation of the work of law enforcement officers, while the law enforcement officer’s view of his profession requires a separate study in sociological science. Therefore, based on the materials of the authors’ empirical study conducted among police officers of the Krasnodar police department (n = 486), methodological possibilities for measuring and describing the professional image of representatives of the law enforcement sphere by calculating indices and correlation coefficients are shown. The presented research results reflect the attitude of law enforcement officers toward their profession, the presence of group prototypes, and the image of a leader in the collective representations of police officers.