• The Army enjoys the highest level of trust by the citizens. The police shares the second place alongside the
religious communities, but the low percentage (43 %) still indicates a dissatisfactory level of trust. On the
other hand, the police is drastically more positively perceived as compared to the other stakeholders in the
criminal justice system (the judiciary and the prosecution remain the most negatively scored institutions).
• Generally, the citizens feel secure, especially in terms of their immediate environment, i.e. their residential
area and the town/village in which they live. Still, their main concerns arise from existential matters, such as
their economic security, the health/Covid-19 and the political instability.
• There is greater percentage of citizens who have a positive perception regarding the professionalism of
the police, as compared to those who have a negative perception. However, there is a prevalence of negative
perceptions regarding the transparency of the police, while, concurrently, the citizens agree that the police is
dependent on the political party-related, governmental and business interests. The perceptions of the police
are more positive with the ethnic Albanians as compared to the ethnic Macedonians, which counteracts the
stereotypes about the low level of trust on the part of the ethnic Albanians in this institution.
• Despite the ongoing reforms, which aim to assure the privacy of the citizens and provide a sense of security,
which are especially important in view of the disrupted trust in the security system during the political
crisis in 2015-2016, half of the respondents think that the secret services are intercepting the citizens’
communications.
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