Determinants of Psychological Readiness to Weapon Employment by Law Enforcement Officers

The police officers’ activities are associated with a high risk degree, danger to life and health, and conscious high responsibility for the performance results of the official tasks. Only personnel training and opening of their potential capabilities can ensure the success of their activities in the extreme conditions that are associated with the use of firearms. Psychological readiness to weapon employment of the law enforcement officials depends on the personality features, on the qualities that characterize the personal adaptive capacity of the officer, on his firmness, situational and trait anxiety, on his behavioral responses in the situation of frustration that include the value of extrapunitive, intrapunitive and impunitive reactions and reactions with the fixation on needs satisfaction. The psychological profiles of police officers with high and low levels of psychological readiness to weapon employment were composed based on the results of the conducted research.

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