Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The primary concern of this article is to review the knowledge and ability of people to act to protect themselves and others in the face of various risks and hazards, and to manage accident and crisis situations. Relevant issues include the needs and requirements of emergency situations, people’s ability to respond to them, and factors that affect coping ability. The selected sub-areas are practiceoriented and defined in terms of real-world problems rather than theories or scientific concepts. One of the purposes of choosing to structure the review of risk, accident and crisis management psychology in this way is to emphasize the importance of human limitations and capabilities as an element in all areas of activity and responsibility. This approach, in turn, assumes that the review contains a broad theoretical base and multifaceted approaches, which are necessarily treated here rather generically.

The article discusses the use of technologies for influencing the weather by the main actors of international relations and the potential consequences of the use of these technologies on global security. The authors showed that technologies for influencing the weather are currently being actively studied and legally applied in developed countries of the world (for example, in the USA, China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates) for precipitation management. However, the use of such systems for military purposes can pose serious threats not only for countries using such technologies and their neighbors, but also on a global scale, especially since the consequences of using methods of influencing the weather are not well understood in the long term. The authors believe that one of the ways to control the use of technologies for influencing weather on global level is the creation of a special international monitoring service, which will be responsible for coordinating research and the use of weather management technologies by states.

In the study presented here, the author attempts to answer questions about the acquisition of information by prison staff that may have a bearing on their safety related to their service and work, the safety of isolated persons, and the general public. Internal regulations of the Prison Service (PS) related to the process of obtaining, processing, collecting and using information are indicated and discussed. Based on the research, the knowledge and action of PS officers in this area was analysed. The article aims to show information as an important factor directly affecting the security of penitentiary units.

Information today is becoming increasingly important, especially in the era of progressive computerization and advancements in the area of computer technology. At the same time, there are also increasingly more threats to this category, of which the most important are criminal offenses against information protection. These are enforced by competent state authorities whose activity is necessary to maintain the proper level of security. The article deals mainly with the phenomenon of crime involving infringement of information, and its scale, using for this purpose the statistical data collected by the Polish National Police Headquarters.

Tackling climate change requires collective, cross-borders actions and local solutions for mitigation measures. Variety of actors are involved in climate change adaptation and mitigation, ranging from local communities to the global supranational institutions. People tend to perceive individual action as failing to cope with climate change (e.g. outlined in Lorenzoni and Pidgeon, 2006) and therefore ascribe high responsibility to the institutional level. This article will analyze how the public in Baltic – Nordic countries perceive the institutional responsibilities in climate change adaptation and mitigation. This article is based on data of Special Eurobarometer (459), conducted in 2017 and the questions analyzed in this article are related to concerns about climate change and the perception of institutional responsibilities in tackling climate change (institutions: national governments, European Union, business and industry, regional and local authorities; and environmental groups). The local, national and global institutions are perceived as having different responsibilities and impacts in tackling climate change. Also, the perceptions of institutional and individual responsibility varies across the countries. Results indicate that climate change is perceived as one of the top three most serious global issues in Baltic – Nordic countries as well as the concern about climate change in those countries is increasing. Regarding public perceptions of institutional responsibility related to climate change risks, most people in EU member states indicate national governments as having highest responsibility. However, there are significant differences comparing the perception of public in Nordic and Baltic States.