Police Officer's Part-Time Work: Current State and Directions for Improvement

Abstract

Abstract. In the current conditions of transformation of the public security system, the issue of legal regulation of restrictions on police officers' part-time work acquires practical significance due to the increasing burden on personnel potential, economic factors, as well as due to the legislative changes that have been made, which formalized certain types of permitted activities, without eliminating systemic problems in the implementation of this institution. The research method is to analyze the current state of police officers' part-time work, identify key legal, organizational and socio-economic problems arising in connection with the current regulation, and make proposals for practical directions for improving the legal mechanism. A regulatory and legal analysis, a system-structural approach, a dogmatic method, a comparative legal analysis of national and international practices, as well as a formal-logical method were applied to clarify the concept of part-time work. It was established that the current legislation formally allows the unification of services with a limited list of types of paid activity, however, this list is higher and does not correspond to general approaches to the regulation of part-time work for other categories of public servants. Unified criteria for the selection of persons for part-time work, training standards and methodological support were excluded, which leads to uneven application of the practice in law enforcement agencies. The analysis showed that the formal inclusion of pedagogical activity in the list of permitted types did not resolve the issue of part-time work for police officers, but only consolidated the existing practice. A comparative analysis of international practical tools for effective regulation, in particular clear professional standards, time accounting systems and transparent procedures for approving part-time work, which are absent in national practice. Based on the identified problems, specific recommendations have been formulated regarding amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the National Police”, the expediency of defining a clear list of permitted and prohibited types, including issues of ethics, conflict of interest, and prevention of corruption in the program of training and advanced training of police officers, increasing the level of material support for police officers to reduce the need for additional paid activities. We also propose to establish criteria for the admissibility of part-time work. The proposed measures are aimed at increasing the transparency of part-time work, reducing the risks of conflict of interest, and optimizing police personnel resources that can be used in the development of regulatory acts, known regulatory legal acts, and personnel procedures in the police and other law enforcement agencies.

Keywords: part-time work; police officers; paid activities; legal regulation; conflict of interest; pedagogical activities; anti-corruption restrictions.