Review: The key purpose of this article lies in consideration of the factors of institutionalization of the system of public assistance of elderly population in the modern regions of Russia. The authors examine such aspects as the impact of environmental, macrolevel factors upon the situation among middle age and elderly population; current state of the system of various forms of public support for the elderly people; and their social surrounding. Particular attention is given to the problems of formation of the system of socio-psychological, psychological and moral support, as well as protection of the rights of the middle age and elderly people in various spheres. Methodology is presented by the structural-functional analysis that allows determining institutional conditions forming comfortable environment that contribute to social inclusion of the elderly population into social life. The authors selected the method of structured questionnaire with an option for multiple answers, surveying the population aged 40 and over from the three regions of the Russian Federation: Altai Krai, Zabaykalsky Krai and Kemerovo Oblast. The scientific novelty is substantiated by the acquisition of new data characterizing the institutional conditions of the system of public assistance for the elderly people. The population believes that the government on the legislative level has created fairly comfortable conditions for the life of retirees, associated mostly with ensuring social guarantees, benefits, compensations, and so on. However, the establishment of the system of moral and psychological support of the elderly, as well as protection of their rights in various spheres is not well developed in the Russian society, and would manifest as a depriving factor associated with the exclusion of elderly population from the system of socio-communicative relations and depreciation of the social values of the status of elderly person.

Keywords: age groups, social representations, social support, ageing, old age, institutionalization, social exclusion, Siberian regions, assessment, adaptation

Review:  The goal of this work is the philosophical-culturological analysis of individual categories of legal consciousness comprising the arsenal of the modern representations on law as a system of positive descriptions and prescriptions; as well as the determination of irrational components that fall under the value fundamentals of individual legal provisions and norms. The subject of this research is the legal consciousness of the representatives of legal professions, including “self-representation” (lawyer),  categories of “justice”, “morality”, “professional worth”, and peculiarly “legal consciousness” and “legal culture”. Categorical analysis of the aforementioned concepts demonstrates the high level of their mythologization. The research method of these dynamic structures of legal consciousness of a lawyer became the comparative analysis, based on the dynamic approach towards understanding of values, principles of historicism and scientific objectiveness; as well as the method of saturated interpretation. The scientific novelty is defined by the acquired conclusion on the presence in the indicated components of an essential mythological element, which may disorient the practically oriented specialist. The specificity of the Russian legal consciousness serves the existence of the extralegal social regulators and operation in assessing legal violations accordant to the concepts of “common sense”, “conscience” and “morality”, which finds reflection in the various codes of professional ethics (investigator, lawyer, etc.). The main result of this work lies in identification of the dependence of emotions of an individual, expressed using the category of “justice”, on the cognitive element of mass legal consciousness. Uncritical attitude to “legal myths”, manifesting as indestructible foundation of legal order, may lead to undesirable social consequences, determine the various forms of delinquent and deviant behavior, legal nihilism, anomy , etc.; as well as result in professional deformation.

Keywords: the legal culture of a lawyer, morality, justice, common sense, the professional ethics of a lawyer, legal awareness, legal myth, mythologization of law, philosophy of culture, professional legal education