The role of interethnic views in forming law enforcement officers' accusatory attitude

As it is known from the theoretical resources social views are implicit but influence officers' social behaviour. Suchlike behaviour may be irrational or be based on the negative social experience, thus forming ethnic stereotype. The research aims to check suppositions about law enforcement officers' biased interethnic attitudes towards representatives of “other” nationalities. The experimental sample comprises sixty law enforcement officers selected due to the nationality and phenotype. The focus was made on twelve police officers. The total sample of the research included seventy-two male police officers. The design of the research was built according to two variables: dependent variable, that is accusatory attitude towards people of other nationalities and independent variable, that is their own nationality and phenotype. The study of interethnic views was conducted via the modified version of the “Repertory grid” developed by G. Kelly and for group processing of data the cluster analysis was used according to the objects (social roles) and descriptors (characteristics attributed to these roles). Analyzing cluster trees special schemes were drawn up which made it possible to trace down the connection between cluster groups according to the objects and according to the descriptors. The research conducted shows that some law enforcement officers have negative interethnic attitudes which are revealed in biased and accusatory attitude towards people of other ethnic groups and it means that negative interethnic bias is necessary to be taken into account when training law enforcement officers and organizing their activity.