Policijos pareigūnų teisinis statusas ; Legal Status of Police Officers

Abstract

The thesis addresses legal status of police officers by scrutinizing efficiency of the institution, identifying the key determinants of the efficiency and modeling legal measures that would allow prompt reaction to the unstable environment of the police service. Efficiency of Legal Status is analyzed via assessment of elements of the legal status and classification of those into four correlative segments. The work comprises an eight year evolution of the efficiency, its sociological indexes in police services exercising patrolling of public places, control of traffic safety and protection of secured objects. The thesis evaluates effects of social environment (community) and political and economic factors upon efficiency of legal status in general and, by scrutinizing legal regulation in each segment individually, identifies faults and shortcomings in the efficiency and evaluates readiness of police officers to exercise their functions by comparison of training programs for primary pack police officers in Lithuania, Ireland and Finland. The thesis ends with a range of proposals on legal regulation of individual segments of the legal status that would allow enhancement of efficiency of legal status and on compensatory mechanisms to maintain restored efficiency of legal status. Conclusions of the survey reveal that the legal status of police officers regulated in accordance with positivistic legal theories is inefficient and neither meets demands of police officers nor the needs of public. Modern approach to legal status has to be grounded by scientific categories of law, management and sociology that would allow implementation of new theoretical and practical paradigms.