It is shown that the social maturity of the future law enforcement officer includes various types of maturity (personal, professional, civic), as a unity of personal, professionally significant, civic qualities that form the core of the integral development of his personality, and is associated with the assimilation of social norms, a system of constructive interpersonal relationships, reflection, stress resistance, forecasting ability, business orientation, independence, social and personal responsibility.
In the structure of social maturity of future law enforcement officers, personal-communicative and professional-behavioural components are distinguished.
It is shown that the personal-communicative component includes a holistic perception of the world, orientation towards self-knowledge, a global self-attitude, self-realisation (orientation in time, value orientations and self-acceptance), motives and values of self-realisation in society (achievement motives, self-realisation in socially significant activities, meaning of life), social intelligence, communicative and organisational tendencies, communicative social competence (logical thinking, emotional maturity, independence, self-control) and sociability.
Criteria for the social maturity of future law enforcement officers were defined: personal, allowing to evaluate the personality traits of the future law enforcement officer necessary for the performance of his professional activity; cognitive, reflecting the possession of knowledge necessary for the performance of professional functions; activity, expressing the degree of practical readiness for professional activity.
Taking into account the structural components of social maturity and its criteria, a model of the system of basic qualities inherent in the socially mature personality of the future police officer is proposed. These include independence of action, ability to cooperate, independence of judgement, emotional stability, ecological perspective, ability to self-development, self-realisation, intellectual development, social, civic activity, high moral position and responsibility.
Indicators for the developmental stages of social maturity of future law enforcement officers were determined: meaningful, which is expressed in the material and cultural basis of activity and manifests itself in ideas about value orientations in the field of education and in the professional sphere; evaluative, which is expressed in the specifics of the manifestation of individuality, personal and social activity; functional, which is determined by the motivation of educational activity and career choice and their independence; the presence of ideas about life prospects; attitude to socio-political, socio-cultural and economic phenomena and processes.
It turns out that the optimal level of social maturity of future law enforcement officers (71.9%) is characterised by the pronounced, non-controversial value orientations in terms of thorough professional training, the development of intellectual skills, realistic life prospects and independence in decision-making, a high level of readiness for future professional activities, independence from external influences, a high degree of self-organisation, self-control, self-determination, initiative, social activity and responsibility, as well as the presence of a constant interest in processes and phenomena occurring in various areas of society.
The acceptable level of social maturity of future law enforcement officers (20.7%) is characterised by the dominance of prestige and prosperity motives related to the structure of their value orientations; uncertainty or inconsistency of life choices; lower level of self-control and readiness for future professional activity; unstable level of responsibility and initiative.
The critical level of social maturity of future law enforcement officers (7.4%) is characterised by a lack of interest in learning, while the motives of duty and avoidance of trouble dominate; focus of interests on other (educationally distant) areas of life, low level of self-organisation, self-control, responsibility and social activity; low interest in social events.
A psychological programme to develop the social maturity of future law enforcement officers was developed as part of their professional training and its effectiveness evaluated. Systemic, subjective-active, context-competent
