On the Issues of Psychological Stability of Employees of Internal Affairs Bodies to the Destructive Impact of Extremist Ideology

The purpose of this study was to study the phenomenon of involvement of police officers in extremist ideology and ways to counter this phenomenon. Experts note a trend towards an increase in the number of law enforcement officers involved in extremist ideology. A large role in such involvement is played by recruiters who are trained to act precisely and without mistakes. Recruiters are not immediately identified; many of them are themselves undercover police officers and, therefore, have the possibility of ideological influence on their less experienced colleagues. In this regard, law enforcement agencies began to study the mechanisms for involving employees in destructive ideologies and develop tools to counter this phenomenon. The emissaries of extremism carry out their recruiting activities in social networks, where every third inhabitant of our planet is registered. The presence of police officers in the social network may be determined by the tasks of the service (for example, they carry out operations to identify extremist content, or carry out outreach work with citizens, etc.), which also makes them vulnerable to recruiters. Since March 2022, the social networks Facebook and Instagram have been banned in the Russian Federation as the most powerful platform for the spread of extremism throughout the world, since the American company Meta Platforms Inc., to which they belong, has been recognized as an extremist organization that broadcasts illegal calls for violence. And since the users of popular social networks, as we have said above, are mostly the youth audience, then the acceptance and approval of the destructive ideology is formed in their fragile minds. Therefore, the formation of psychological resistance among police officers to the destructive influence of extremist ideology, as mentioned above, must be given great importance. Also, successful work to counter the destructive impact on personnel is facilitated by the identification by the leadership of the territorial internal affairs bodies of sources of information threats and the training of officials in the forms and methods of counteracting negative manifestations of extremism. At the same time, it is necessary to block the channels of penetration into the service teams of the internal affairs department of negative ideology, which undermines the psychological stability of employees.

extremism, psychological stability, recruiting activity, social networks, counteraction