Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

The aim of the article was to determine the relationship between the occurrence of social pathologies (alcoholism, drug addiction, violence and aggression, poor financial standing, poverty, unemployment and crime) and the sense of security in local communities. The results of the research were put in the context of sustainable development. The article uses the method of diagnostic survey, with surveying as the technique and questionnaire as the tool for collecting empirical data. The survey covered 600 respondents in the following towns: Siedlce, Włocławek, Zamość, Piła, Ostrów Wielkopolski, Zgierz. The data obtained allowed to solve the research problem posed in the article and in an innovative way to demonstrate the relationship between the occurrence of basic social pathologies and their impact on the safety of the local community. The obtained results show that the respondents are aware of the occurrence of individual social pathologies in their local environment, as well as perceive their significant impact on functioning in the local community covered by the survey and have knowledge of the impact of negative phenomena on sustainable development. The article presents the author’s approach to the issue of finding out about social pathologies and indicating their influence on the sense of security in the local community, as well as their importance for sustainable development.

The aim of the present paper is to present preliminary results of the pilot research pertaining to the assessment of the fundamental elements of the local security system, the research being conducted by the authors on the statistically significant sample (4 400 persons) of the inhabitants of local communities of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeship (an administrative unit in Poland). Since the research was very extensive indeed, the present paper contains only a fragment of its results. It transpired that the sense of security of the members of the local communities of the Kuyvian-Pomeranian voivodeship is at a relatively high level. With the assumed scale (ranging from 1 to 10), the greatest number of respondents assessed it at the level of 8 points, and the absolute majority of them assessed it at least at the level of 6. Among all the elements assessed, it was the operations of fire fighters that were evaluated as best. What was assessed as definitely the worst was the functioning of health care and of non-governmental organizations. What came as a sort of surprise are relatively poor (given the allegiance to tradition exhibited by Polish society) scores given to the influence of the Church on the sense of local communality, with a relatively frequent scores falling in 1-4 range. The research method thus put forward by the authors is innovative since it offers a combination of so-called hard elements of security elements with barely measurable sense of security, as assessed by particular persons. A relatively large research sample ensures that the results are significantly informative.

The article presents the nature of regional conflicts as one of the types of social conflicts in the context of traditional (naturalistic) and activity approaches. The authors reveal a number of conditions that determined the reasons for use of social conflicts in the second half of the 20th century, as well as the features of the increased demand for them in terms of solving the problems generated by contemporary globalization processes. Particular attention is paid to the threat posed by the attempts of a number of countries to use regional conflicts in order to demonstrate their power to the rest of the world. The article presents the analysis of the reasons contributing to the transformation of regional conflicts into an attribute of global instability, as well as considers the prospects of the formation of a multipolar world arrangement model, where the very possibility of regional conflicts could be minimized.

Soft targets are places that are typical of a large concentration of population and a low level of security. Compared to so-called hard targets, these places are not permanently protected. Soft targets are shopping centers, clubs, restaurants, schools, transport, airport terminals, gatherings, entertainment centres etc. Soft targets are increasingly being chosen as a target for terrorists. It is caused mainly by its characteristics. This paper focuses on the safety situation of soft targets due to current threats of terrorist attacks, it specifically addresses the issue of safety in the entertainment industry. Based on the available terrorist attacks database, terrorist attacks, attacks on soft targets and entertainment during the years 1970–2017 were evaluated. There is an increase specifically in attacks on soft targets and attacks on entertainment in the years 2005–2015 and the most in 2011–2015. Based on the analysis of available data, basic safety measures have been designed to increase the resilience of soft targets – entertainment centres that are used for other objects and events with a large number of citizens. The aim of this article is to establish basic criteria to identify soft targets and to assign a level of importance to the criteria based on a questionnaire survey carried out among professionals.

Pension system efficiency is very sensitive topic to every citizen of the country. It is very common to criticize established pension systems in search for better solutions. The authors in the present research paper attempt to find out whether the criticism is deserved by evaluating the efficiency of Latvian pension system from the future pensioner’s point of view in the context of the state pension financed from two sources: state pension and state funded pension. Additionally, the authors highlight a number of aspects of pension system the sustainability in Latvia. Private pension is not considered.