Future law enforcement officers’ attitudes towards sexual minorities

Abstract

Lithuanians seem to have rather negative attitude toward various minority groups and it may reflect general intolerance. Police and law 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 evaluate law enforcement students’ negative attitude and homophobic reactions toward sexual minorities. A modified 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 negative attitude towards sexual minorities and male participants have an extremely negative reactions toward 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 towards gays and tendency to infringe their civil rights – this tendency is 2,7–4,6 times higher when the future law enforcement officers are male.