Investigators in Russia

Abstract

The article describes the investigators (sledovateli) in post-soviet Russia. Investigators is the paradoxical professional group - a bureaucratic stratum between the police detectives and prosecutors. Paper is based on the interview and questionnaire survey with the investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). Authors describes gender, educational and age structures of this group, analyses the professional everyday-life and routines.

Keywords::

• Russian criminal procedure
• legal profession
• crime investigation

Notes

English translation © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text © “Sledovateli Rossii: kto sozdaet praktiku rassledovaniia ugolovnykh del.” Published with the authors' permission. [Notes have been renumbered in this edition.—Ed.] Kirill Titaev, MA in sociology (EUSP / Helsinki University), Senior Researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). Field of interest: empirical legal studies, criminal procedure, criminal statistics, police studies.Maria Shkliaruk, PhD in economics (St. Petersburg Technical University), lawyer, Researcher at the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). Field of interest: empirical legal studies, criminal procedure, criminal statistics, police studies.Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield.

^1. An inquiry official (doznavatel’) does essentially the same sort of work as an investigator (sledovatel’), but deals with cases of crimes that are less serious and as a rule relatively obvious (in which there is no need for lengthy and complicated efforts to identify the culprit and collect nontrivial evidence).

^2. The neighborhood police also act as an inquiry body when they check a crime report and decide whether sufficient grounds exist to conclude that a crime has been committed and that it is necessary to initiate a criminal case.

^3. L.V. Golovko, “Reforma politsii v kontekste modernizatsii predvaritel'nogo proizvodstva v rossiiskom ugolovnom protsesse,” in Ugolovnaia iustitsiia: sviaz’ vremen: Izbrannye materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii: Sankt-Peterburg, 6–8 oktiabria 2010 goda, comp. A.V. Smirnov and K.B. Kalinovskii (Moscow, 2012), p. 26.

^4. The investigator in the Ministry of Internal Affairs has the same chief as the operative or precint policeman—the local police chief (usually at the raion level). The investigator at the Investigations Committee and the MVD operative share the president as their ultimate chief.

^5. A. Smirnov, Rossiiskii ugolovnyi protsess: ot zakata do rassveta (RAPSI, 2014). (http://rapsinews.ru/judicial_analyst/20141202/272697983.html; accessed June 2, 2015).

^6. As a rule these are understood to be detectives, but in practice a significant role is played by precinct police and in certain categories of cases by employees of the Main Directorate of Road Traffic Safety or the Patrol and Post Service.

^7.Kak sud'i prinimaiut resheniia: empiricheskie issledovaniia prava, ed. V.V. Volkov (Moscow, 2012).

^8. E.L. Paneiakh, M.L. Pozdniakov, K.D. Titaev, et al. Pravookhranitel'naia deiatel'nost’ v Rossii: struktura, funktsionirovanie, puti reformirovaniia, ed. V.V. Volkov and E.L. Paneiakh; Institut problem pravoprimeneniia, Diagnostika raboty pravookhranitel'nykh organov RF i vypolneniia imi politseiskoi funktsii, Part 1 (2012). (www.enforce.spb.ru/images/Fond_Kudrina/irl_pravookhrana_part_1_final_31_12_ich.pdf; accessed June 2, 2015). See also: V.V. Volkov A.V. Dzmytrieva, E.N. Moiseeva, E.L. Paneiakh, et al. “Concept for Comprehensive Organizational and Managerial Reform of the Law Enforcement Agencies of the RF”, in Statutes and Decisions, vol. 48, no. 5, September–October 2013, pp. 5–91.

^9. M.S. Shkliaruk, “Rossiiskii ugolovnyi protsess kak sistema fil'trov: dosudebnye traektorii i otbor ugolovnykh del na primere MVD,” in Obvinenie i opravdanie v postsovetskoi ugolovnoi iustitsii: sb. st., ed. V.V. Volkov (Moscow, 2015), pp. 155–83.

^10. V. Volkov and T. Titaev, “Lish’ 8% obviniaemykh gotovy borot'sia za svoe dobroe imia,” Vedomosti, February 28, 2013 (www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2013/02/28/zavedomo_vinovnye; accessed June 2, 2015; registration may be required).

^11. E. Paneiakh, “Transaktsionnye effekty plotnogo regulirovaniia na stykakh organizatsii: Na primere rossiiskoi pravookhranitel'noi sistemy,” Politiia, 2011, no. 2(61) (www.politeia.ru/content/pdf/Politeia_Paneyah-2011-2.pdf; accessed June 2, 2015).

^12. M.S. Shkliaruk, Traektoriia ugolovnogo dela v statistike: na primere obobshchennykh dannykh pravookhranitel'nykh organov (Institut problem pravoprimeneniia, 2014) (http://enforce.spb.ru/images/Issledovanya/2014/IRL 2014.04 MShklyaruk Trajectory-of-Criminal-Case.pdf).

^13. M. Shkliaruk, D. Skugarevskii, A. Dmitrieva, I. Skifskii, and I. Begtin, Kriminal'naia statistika: mekhanizmy formirovaniia, prichiny iskazheniia, puti reformirovaniia: issledovatel'skii otchet (St. Petersburg and Moscow, 2015) (http://enforce.spb.ru/images/Staff/Crimestat_report_2015_IRL_KGI_web.pdf).

^14. J. Eisenstein and H. Jacob, Felony Justice: An Organizational Analysis of Criminal Courts (Boston: Little Brown, 1977).

^15. See Shkliaruk, Traektoriia ugolovnogo dela.

^16. The borderline between investigation and inquiry in Russia is very reminiscent of the American division of crimes into felonies and misdemeanors. By and large, a person without prior convictions who has committed a misdemeanor (or a crime in a case investigated in the form of an inquiry) hardly ever receives a punishment involving real deprivation of freedom.

^17. “Sostoianie prestupnosti ianvar’-dekiabr’ 2011 goda,” MVD RF, February 20, 2012 (http://mvd.ru/upload/site1/import/c47a38e0d6.pdf).

^18. These figures are taken from the Web site of the Unified Interdepartmental Information-Statistical System (www.fedstat.ru). For a detailed description of the data and summary data by department, see M.S. Shkliaruk, Traektoriia ugolovnogo dela v ofitsial'noi statistike. Analiticheskii obzor, ed. K.L. Titaev and E.L. Paneiakh (St. Petersburg: Institut problem pravoprimeneniia, 2014), pp. 8–9.

^19. The four grounds for suspending a preliminary investigation are: (1) failure to identify a culprit or suspect; (2) failure to establish the whereabouts of the culprit or suspect because he has gone into hiding or for some other reason; (3) the infeasibility of the participation of the culprit or suspect in a criminal case even though his whereabouts are known; and (4) the temporary grave illness of the culprit or suspect.

^20. For a more detailed account of other decisions, see M. Shkliaruk and E. Paneiakh, “Sistema ne fil'truet: Skol'ko ugolovnykh del otseivaetsia na rannikh stadiiakh,” Vedomosti, April 25, 2013 (http://enforce.spb.ru/publikatsii-sotrudnikov/mi-v-smi/5948-m-shklyaruk-e-paneyakh-extra-jus-sistema-ne-filtruet-skolko-ugolovnykh-del-otseivaetsya-na-rannikh-stadiyakh).

^21. For a more detailed discussion of official statistics and their interpretations and limitations, see Shkliaruk, Traektoriia ugolovnogo dela v statistike.

^22. All the interviews, the questionnaire survey, and the initial analysis were conducted with the support of the Committee for Civil Initiatives (Kudrin Foundation for the Support of Civil Initiatives). The detailed analysis and interpretation of the data were conducted within the framework of the project “Sociological Investigation of the Legal Profession in Russia,” with the support of the Russian Scientific Foundation (Grant No. 14-18-02219).

^23. A. Dmitrieva, M. Pozdniakov, and K. Titaev, Rossiiskie sud'i: sotsiologicheskii issledovanie professii, ed. V. Volkov (Moscow: Norma, 2015) A. Dmitrieva, M. Pozdniakov, and K. Titaev, Rossiiskie sud'i kak professional'naia gruppa: sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie, ed. V. Volkov (St. Petersburg: IPP EU SPb, 2012).