Future law enforcement officers’ attitudes towards sexual minorities ; Būsimų teisėtvarkos pareigūnų požiūris į seksualines mažumas

Lithuanians seem to have rather negative attitude t oward various minority groups and it may reflect general intolerance. Police and l aw enforcement officers should not take up discriminatory position related to some persons as this can affect the professional interactions negatively. The purpose of the study was to evaluat e law enforcement students’ negative attitude and homophobic reactions toward sexual minorities. A mo dified Negative Attitudes Toward Gay Men questionnaire (Davies, 2004) was used to survey 174 future law enforcement officers. Results revealed that law enforcement students tend to have a very n egative attitude towards sexual minorities and male participants have an extremely negative reactions t oward gays compared to lesbians. Personality traits play minor role while the law enforcement officers’ gender may play the main role in stereotyping and having an extremely negative affective reactions to wards gays and tendency to infringe their civil rig hts – this tendency is 2,7–4,6 times higher when the fu ture law enforcement officers are male.