As a result the number of district militia officers who knew their districts and residents quite well and who were known in their districts reduced greatly. Here is again the change from intrapersonal relations to official ones.
I am not quite sure that many Russians know today their district militia officer. I do not know ours either. But out of my childhood I remember a militiaman who stood on point duty near my grandfather’s house in Mariupol.
2.2. The relations between the militia and the public are different for different services and for various public groups.
In particular, the public assessment of the public security militia and the criminal militia service is quite different. But the public majority does not distinguish investigators in its opinion. It distinguishes greatly state traffic safety inspectors and gives less prominence to officers of departments for combatting the organized crime.
Some special militia subdivisions such as well-known OMON[519] (special-purpose militia detachment) and others make rather a contradictory contribution to the relations between the militia and the public.
Teenagers, young people subjected previously to criminal proceedings and drivers are the most critical public groups towards the militia.
As the majority of journalists drive cars it cannot but affect the mass media’s attitude to militiamen. I have verified the fact of prejudice by the method of concealed interview.
2.3. The multiplication of a staff number in the law-enforcement bodies, including the polices, typical for the state structure of recent years has perhaps also a negative influence on the relations between the militia and the public.
2.4. Judging by documents the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs is aware of the problematic situation availability. Since the second half of 1994 the All-Russia Research Institute has been submitting quarterly the data of public opinion analysis including the public appraisal of the militia and its activity to the Headquarters. The complex program of the RF MIA for forming a positive public opinion on the activity of the law enforcement bodies was elaborated in 1996. Also some other measures are being taken and provisions are being made.
But there is an impression that this work lacks to some extent the consistency of aim. Such a conclusion is based on the results of the analysis of the present public opinion on the militia.
3. Problem
As a problem we understand here the definition of ways and means for system reformation[520] which is based on the identification and comprehension of the problematic situation (see above).
So, there are two constants (from the above-described). (1) The relations between the public and the police are of importance for the both subjects of interrelation. (2) The current relations between the militia and the public in Russia have a dysfunctional nature.
Conclusion. The system needs to be reformed with such a desirable result as the eufunctionality of the public opinion, the public spirits and behaviour of citizens, on the one hand and the police actions on the other hand.
To reform the complicated system, a complex system of measures is needed. The list of recommended measures is given at the end of the report. You may find here the characteristic of prerequisites for taking such measures.
To manage the complicated system a complex administrating parameter is required. But for the system of the police-public relations in present Russia the question of administrating parameter is complicated by itself. What authority is able to act in this capacity in the society torn apart by contradictions.
3.0. The relations of the police and public are composed of the public attitude to the militia, on the one side, and of the militia attitude to the public, on the other. The second side is often omitted in analysis.
3.1. Determinants of the public and individual opinion on the militia (1,12–67; 9, 23–70).
3.1.1. The real militia. In the first place the public or individual opinion on the militia and, consequently, the relations between the militia and the public are determined by an actual militia work, its results.
3.1.2. The negative determinant of recent years is the use of the militia as a figure in a political game.
3.1.3. The notion of it. An actual work of the militia influences the public opinion not only directly (it is more seldom) but through the public notion formed about this work. The notion on the militia work is influenced, besides by itself, by the orientations (stereotypes, prejudice) of the public, group and individual mind and also by mass media and referent groups.
3.1.4. Personal characteristics of militiamen with whom a citizen contacts. Militia personnel.
The public attitude to the militia is determined quite significantly by the fact who serves in it. And the current situation is here that cannot be worse any more.
3.1.5. In the last 8–9 years a great number of professionals left the militia. Not always they are substituted by equally skilled specialists.
The Provision on Service currently in force conduces to further professionals’ leaving the militia. They are granted the opportunity to retire early. And they leave the militia and move to other employers.
3.1.6. In recent years the law enforcement bodies, including the militia, have considerably increased their staff. But the fact that this increase has been carried out without following the objective law on the increase of a scheduled number[521] (6, 50–69) results in negative consequences. The militia has employed people who were not fit for such a service for their personal traits. It is proved by an evident or concealed shortage in quality and quantity, by a great staff turnover.
3.1.7. Some top positions in the militia have happened to be held by persons appointed not for their skills but for political reasons, by virtue of their personal devotion (members of teams).
3.1.8. Public notion on militia men
Usually the public has a deal with less trained militiamen and it affects negatively on the public notion about militiamen. More skilled officers sit in their offices and have contacts with citizens only from time to time.
3.1.9. “Alarm” factor. The following two kinds of anxiety are understood as the alarm factor: (1) to become a victim of a crime and (2) to become a victim of the militiamen’s outrage.
According to the April research in Penza 23 % of respondents fear “to become a victim of thieves and robbers” (21 % – “to be heavy injured or killed by criminals”), 10 % of respondents said that they are afraid of the outrages of the law-enforcement bodies.
3.2. The determinants of the attitude of the militia to the public are worked out less in the native literature. Some time ago a considerable number of militiamen engaged in the patrol-post service in Moscow came from rural districts. On account of the difference in their and Muscovites’ subcultures the supporters of the countryside mode of behaviour considered a great part of townsmen as public disturbers while those townsmen did not think so.
The similar regularity manifested itself in spring 1997 in perception of fans behavior. The militia men maintaining a public order at stadiums anticipated another mode of behaviour from fans than that which the fans defined for themselves. It resulted in incidents: for example in use of cudgels at the stadium in Noginsk.
3.2.1. The attitude of the militia to the public in Russia is still the object of the further thorough study.
3.3. The organizational measures of the police and the active part of the public for relations improvement.
It has been stated before that the police-and-public interaction (in a wide meaning of this term) exists objectively. Its manifestations do not depend on the fact whether the subjects of interaction are aware of it or not.
But the nature of such manifestations, their influence on the state of law and order depend on it greatly. That is why it is necessary to take organizational measures to be aimed at the improvement of the relationship both from the police’s side and from the side of the active public part, of social unions and independent organizations.
In my point of view, the aspiration for connecting all public associations of law-enforcement-orientation with the militia is wrong. This aspiration was clearly displayed in course of preparation of the draft Law on Public Participation in Maintenance of Law and Order.
Though at present there are the determinants of such a position. In Russia today the civil society is hardly able to independent actions in maintenance of law and order.
However in distinction to majority of the members of the working group for elaboration of the draft Law on Public Participation in Maintenance of Law and Order I believe that the civil society needs to be activated.
3.4. The third one is not unwanted – mass media institutions (4, 3 – 64).
In the family union of the police and the public under the present conditions the third member is inevitably exists. This member is mass media institutions. Exactly institutions but not just mass media because some mass media may be under supervision of the police.
For example, the magazine “Militia’” and the newspaper “Schit and Mech” (“Shield and Sword”) are the gist of mass media. But the institution that determines their place in a love triangle is the Joint Editorial Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russian Federation