International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Trust of the police force in key institutions represents a key precondition for coherent functioning of the state and effective law enforcement. This article presents the results of the research mapping the level of institutional trust among Czech members of the police force focusing on their attitudes towards political, judicial, and economic actors. The data, collected through a questionnaire survey among the members of the police force, are interpreted in context and compared with data from international public opinion surveys – the Eurobarometer and the Edelman Trust Barometer. The analysis identifies substantial variations in trust across institutions and media. A consistent pattern emerged, showing that older and longer-serving officers tend to express lower trust in the political regime and the media, yet report higher satisfaction with their income. Gender differences were also observed: female officers are generally less trusting towards business leaders and journalists and display slightly greater support for protest activities. The article offers valuable insights for the theory of social trust and for decision makers in the sphere of public administration and security.

At the end of 2022, the population of the Czech Republic reached 10,827,529, the highest ending population since the end of the Second World War. Although the migration wave from Ukraine, which included mainly children and women of working age, has slightly slowed the aging of the population, according to the Czech Statistical Office, the Economic Dependency Index has steadily increased between 2013 and 2022, from 57 to 72 non-productive age persons per 100 working-age persons. The sustainability of the financing of oldage pensions under the social security system is fundamentally conditioned by the demographic evolution of the population. The aging of society, which is a virtually universal phenomenon in the EU Member States, is, on the one hand, a manifestation of the desired rising standard of living, but at the same time, it creates pressure to find additional resources for the financial security of citizens in old age. The long-term imbalance of the pension system is a source of political demand for its adjustment, whether comprehensive or sub-parametric. Long-service allowances are an important financial instrument to increase the motivation of those interested in employment in the security forces. Thus, a possible reduction of its importance within the pension system, e.g. by relativizing the valorisation mechanism, may represent not only a threat to social reconciliation but also an indirect security risk for the state, consisting in a reduced demand for work in the police, firefighters and other professions. The paper aims to determine whether the general attitudes of the Czech public towards the pension system in the Czech Republic presented by the STEM agency correspond to the attitudes of full-time and distance learning students at the Police Academy of the Czech Republic in Prague, to identify any differences and to evaluate the possibilities of future long-term reduction of demographic risk for the pension system and for ensuring the stability of human resource capacity for the security forces.