Trust in the Security and Justice Institutions Security institutions contribute to maintaining order and social stability, but they perform this task by restricting the freedom of individuals. The higher the trust in these institutions, the higher their democratic legitimacy. In general, the barometer results show that trust in institutions is relatively low. Although the military enjoys comparatively higher confidence, the percentage of citizens who have a lot of trust in them is only 27.4% featuring a decline by about 7 percentage points compared to 2019. The percentage of citizens who have little or no trust remains high, 32.9%, and marks a slight increase from the 31% that was recorded in 2019. How much trust do you have in the military? 45 40 34.26 35 30 27.4 25 20 15 10 5 0 A lot 38.8 33 22.0 18.92 Somewhat A little 12.11 10.9 Not at all 1.7 0.9 Don’t know 2019 2020 Graph 77. Perception of trust in the military. A similar decline is reported among those who placed a lot of trust in the State Police; this percentage has dropped by 10 percentage points compared with 2019. A slight change is also seen in the percentage of those that have little or no trust at all in this institution – from 36.86% in 2019 to 37.4% in 2020. Similar to the case of the military, there is an increase of 9 percentage points of the percentage of respondents who placed somewhat trust in the State Police. 79