Violence in Law-Enforcement Bodies: Conflicts, Pressure, Torture

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. This article is based on an analysis of material from a study conducted in January–February 2019 on Russians’ attitudes toward RF law-enforcement bodies, an evaluation of their work and confidence in them, as well as opinions about how widespread torture is in the system of law-enforcement bodies and the how permissible such practices are. The total sample consisted of 3,400 respondents. The survey was conducted in fifty-three constituent entities of the RF, at 148 survey locations, of which 104 were in urban communities and 44 in rural areas. “Rossiiskaia sudebnaia sistema v mneniiakh obshchestva,” Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia, 2010, no. 4 (106), pp. 7–43; “Monitoring otnosheniia rossiiskogo naseleniia k sudebnoi reforme i sudebnoi sisteme,” Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia, 2014, nos. 3–4, pp. 13–69.

^2. Here and elsewhere this is shorthand for “Barely enough money to buy food.”

^3. Here and elsewhere this is shorthand for “Enough money for food and clothing; purchase of more expensive items, such as a television or refrigerator, causes problems.”

^4. Here and elsewhere this is shorthand for “Can afford to buy durable goods and not deny ourselves anything.”

^5. The sum of the responses “Once or a few times” and “Often, many times” to the question “Have you personally had conflict situations with law-enforcement personnel?”

^6. The total was determined by a recalculation; the respondents selected were those on whom torture was used at least once.

1. On this subject see, above all, Levada, Iu. “Chelovek prisposoblennyi.” In Ot mnenii k ponimaniiu. Moskovskaia shkola politicheskikh issledovanii. Moscow, 2000, pp. 438–467. See also the data in the trendline of the population’s adaptation to change: Ezhegodnik obshchestvennogo mneniia. Moscow: Levada-Tsentr, 2019, p. 17.

2. See Gudkov, L. Bednost’ i zavist’: negativnyi fon perekhodnogo obshchestva.” In Abortivnaia modernizatsiia. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2011; Gudkov, L.; B. Dubin; and N. Zorkaia. “‘Srednii klass’ as if: mneniia i nastroeniia vysokodokhodnoi molodezhi v Rossii,” VOM, 2008, no. 3, pp. 27–41; Ezhegodnik obshchestvennogo mneniia–2018. Moscow: Levada-Tsentr, 2019, p. 40, Graph 6.6.

3. We would have gotten a different picture if the ratio of those confident in their right to secure justice and relief to those who doubt or have no faith in such an opportunity had been 3:1 or 4:1; in this instance these two attitudes practically neutralize each other.

4. The interviewer gave the tablet to the respondent when the latter reached this block of questions.

5. This is the sum of respondents who in answering the question “Have you personally had conflict situations with law-enforcement personnel?” chose the responses “once or a few times” and “often, many times.”

6. The sum of the responses “once or a few times” and “often, many times,” Table 10. The higher percentage of responses among Muscovites about instances of conflicts with LEP suggests that that group presumably contained a larger proportion of sophisticated people who knew their rights and were willing to uphold them, which respondents could regard as a conflict.

7. This set of situations may include interaction with GIBDD [Main Administration for Ensuring Traffic Safety] officers, which was not part of the survey questionnaire, or situations involving other personal experiences. One of the respondents recounted that his child, a minor, was taken to the police station without any grounds, and in violation of all procedures the respondent was compelled urgently, at night, to go to the station and sort out what had happened. In this example the police did not use violence, but the respondent understands that the police officers acted unlawfully, which led to a conflict.

8. On this subject see articles that deal with research on the reform of the judicial system, e.g., Gudkov, L.; B.Dubin; and N. Zorkaia. “Rossiiskaia sudebnaia sistema v mneniiakh obshchestva,” Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia, 2010, no. 4, pp. 7–43, etc.

9. One can interpret the propensity for swearing and obscene language and aggressive behavior (above all in low-status strata of young people) that are so typical of adolescents and young adults as a kind of defense against an external threat of violence and the internalization of this violence, as well as a mode of “negative adaptation” to it.

10. The sum of the responses “once or a few times” and “often, many times.”

11. An indicator recalculated on the basis of the overall batch of data obtained on the use of torture.

12. We can only posit various conjectures: For example, TV series on the work of the militia or investigators include scenes of beatings and psychological pressure on people, violence and degrading treatment during interrogations, harsh treatment while detaining people or establishing their identity. The same may be conjectured about feature films that may be about Stalin-era repressions, and so forth. Another hypothesis involves a recent scandal—the beatings of an inmate in a corrective colony shot on video that one way or another ended up on federal channels in spite of censorship. But we cannot confirm or reject any of these explanations on the basis of the available material.

13. See http://crimestat.ru/social_portrait.