In an increasingly complex society, the role of the police tends to be versatile. Thus, lately, researchers have paid particular attention to topics related to the police, and implicitly to the public image of the institution. Generally, the image of the police is conceptualized based on three main categories: overall image, results and process (Mastrofski, 1998). The overall image of the police reflects perceptions, feelings and evaluations of the police in general. As noted by Gallagher, Maguire, Mastrofski, and Reisig (2001), this area includes various general descriptions and analyzes of trust in the police (e.g., Hough, Jackson, & Bradford, 2013; Stanko, Jackson, Bradford, & Kohl, 2012). ), satisfaction with the police (e.g. Ashcroft, Daniels & Hart, 2002; Skogan 2005), police performance in general (Cheurprakobkit, 2000; Cheurprakobkit & Bartsch, 2001), etc., all as indicators of citizens' attitudes towards the police. (Avjida, 2010). Despite the abundant approach to the subject in foreign cultures, notably Anglo-American, Romanian scientific literature does not seem to focus on the image of the Romanian police forces. There are only a few studies which address the problem of perception or attitude towards the police or police officers (e.g. Constantin & Stoica-Constantin, 1999), and which mainly use opinion barometers as measurement methods. (e.g. GfK Trust Index, 2011; Global Corruption Barometer, 2013). Image assessment can be carried out by several methods, each with different levels of operationalization and discriminative capacity (Chiciudean & Ţones, 2010). Although in this sector public opinion polls have been most frequently used, there is a whole literature on the application of SDD in...... middle of article...... expanded strategies for improving and strengthening its place in the community. The SDS can also be used to assess the projected/desired organizational image, in order to establish social distance from that actually perceived. At the same time, it can serve as an analysis tool in terms of the image perceived and/or desired by workers of their organization. A limitation of the study concerns the sample population. Participation was voluntary, based on the convenience of accessibility of respondents, without any sampling selection. For this reason, we cannot generalize the results to the general population. Although the author considers that his findings mitigate these shortcomings to some extent and that the instrument is capable of providing a tool for assessing institutional image, further research is considered necessary..