Trust as a moral category in operational investigative activities

Operational investigative activity is a process of obtaining information, carried out both in public (open) and non-public (secret) ways, which is necessary to solve the tasks facing law enforcement agencies. Prevention, suppression, detection, disclosure and investigation of crimes is impossible without effective interaction of operatives and citizens, who can be a source of very important and necessary information. For this purpose, employees of operational units of law enforcement agencies and master the achievements of modern science of psychology. In departmental law enforcement higher educational institutions, the corresponding "closed" discipline "Operational investigative psychology" is implemented in the process of mastering which, operational staff are trained to use knowledge of mental processes and psychological qualities of a person to solve the tasks of operational investigative activity ^[1].

In this connection, the present study draws attention to the moral category of "trust", which in operational investigative activities has many controversial issues related to the establishment and maintenance of psychological contact between subjects and objects of operational investigative activities, as well as misleading participants in interpersonal communication. In the course of interaction with citizens, each operative sets a goal to establish and maintain psychological contact with a person, which is achieved by creating certain conditions that guarantee the progress of communication in a specific direction ^[2].

The relevance of the research topic lies in the fact that a legal and democratic state is always interested in the trust of society, in whose interests the state functions. Trust is manifested in the attitude of citizens to government officials, that is, to law enforcement officers. In the practice of operational activities, there is not enough psychological knowledge to establish and maintain interpersonal contacts. The relations between society and the state also depend on how professionally law enforcement officers are able to win the trust of the population.

The subject of our research is the psychological process of establishing trusting relationships between law enforcement officers and citizens, as well as the use of the phenomenon of trust in the detection and investigation of crimes.

The main purpose of the study is to study the problem of establishing trust in operational investigative activities in order to obtain operationally relevant information. For this purpose, the research uses general logical, dialectical, empirical and other methods of scientific cognition as a methodological basis. The theoretical basis of the research is formed by scientific works of scientists, as well as educational and methodological literature.

According to Ozhegov's dictionary, trust is confidence in someone's conscientiousness, sincerity, and correctness of actions. Trust, by definition, P.N. Shikhirev, is the most important part of human relations, the importance of which cannot be overestimated in socio-psychological terms ^[3].

We believe that trust in law enforcement is a psychophysiological process that causes feelings of openness, sincere relationship between the subject and the object of operational investigative activities. Full trust is an established opinion that includes not only an emotional component, but also confidence in a person, in his kind attitude and the absence of manifestation from the negative side. Trust is included in the interaction between people, first of all, in the process of communication. That is, trust can be studied through the phenomenon of interpersonal communication.

The level of manifestation of a person's sociability is determined by what her motivation and desire for communication, interest in contacts are. These factors determine trusting relationships between people. And, conversely, trust in a person can form a person's desire to communicate with him. Thus, on the one hand, sociability as a property of a personality can generate its trustworthiness, and on the other hand, the phenomenon of trust can determine the sociability of a personality ^[4].

Trust lies in a sense of "security", the prerequisite for this is mutual understanding, confidence in the interlocutor ^[5]. According to the sociological encyclopedia, security is a state of social relations in which an individual, a social group, a community, a people, a country (state) can independently, sovereignly, without interference and pressure from outside, freely choose and implement its strategy of international behavior, spiritual, socio-economic and political development.

In other scientific sources, trust refers to a certain state of the body, specific emotions that are produced due to a large number of neural connections. They, in turn, correspond to certain muscle conditions. If there has been no experience in trust in life, then a person is to some extent closed from the world, cannot fully experience a sense of trust.

Neural connections determine habits, skills, skills that are formed, such an opportunity is provided due to the neuroplasticity of human brain structures. Any strong emotion accompanies the appearance of a new neural connection, the stronger the emotion, the stronger the neural pathway is formed. For example, if a person was attacked by a dog in childhood, respectively, he experienced a strong fear, after which a strong emotion established and secured a neural connection. Accordingly, a great fright to some extent provoked the strengthening of the neural pathway, thereby it led a person to a certain stable association: a dog is scary. Human consciousness also exists due to the formed neural connections, which in turn express successful and unsuccessful experiences in life. With the formation of such an emotion as trust, neural connections begin to form, if a person has had experience in trust throughout his life, then again with this emotion, this neural pathway begins to be excited and strengthened, the connection is formed stronger and the person perceives trust better and makes contact easier.

Psychological contact in operational investigative activity appears between an operative and a citizen through communication, mutual interests, understanding, that is, the interlocutors desire and perceive information from each other. It is necessary to create a favorable atmosphere so that the interlocutor internally becomes ready to participate in the conversation, can calmly listen to arguments, facts and various arguments from the employee. The establishment of a favorable atmosphere helps to psychologically relieve the citizen, relieve tension, relax when communicating with an employee. An employee, thanks to his knowledge and skills, should understand when a citizen begins to give false data, information that can confuse an employee or infuriate him, stop it in time by applying tactical methods of establishing psychological contact.

G.M. Zabolotnaya notes: "One of the most important factors determining the nature of not only interpersonal, but in general all social relations is trust. It is directly "woven" into the mechanism that ensures the integration and stability of society" ^[6].

Trust is the foundation of communication and mutual understanding of each other, two parties always participate in it, it is impossible to gain trust without showing it in response ^[7]. In order to get certain information from the interlocutor, in order to be liked in the process of communication, it is necessary to demonstrate to him that the employee also trusts him, to give something in return. It is necessary to act gradually, take small steps, take certain obligations, giving insignificant information to the employee, but providing it to the interlocutor as very significant. Then in the subconscious of the interlocutor there is a feeling that he is trusted, and he can trust in return.

In the course of professional activity, law enforcement officers often have to neglect moral and ethical norms for a higher purpose - to solve a crime and expose the guilty person, in addition to prevent the commission of crimes or release forcibly detained persons. For a decently educated person and even a trained employee, it is not an easy task to control personal mental processes that arise as a result of abuse of trust or misleading interlocutors. In practice, acting skills contribute to this, an operative is a good actor. So, it is not by chance that Professor R.S. Belkin wrote in his last monograph that "it is time to openly admit that the state also recognizes the permissibility of deception in the law enforcement sphere: it has legalized the HORDE, largely based on disinformation, deception as a means of detecting and solving crimes. Deception of a person opposing an operative is not considered immoral; without resorting to deception, it is impossible to infiltrate a criminal group, catch a bribe taker, extortionist, etc. red-handed" ^[7].

For a more successful disclosure and investigation of crimes, operational officers must fully study and take into account the psychological characteristics of citizens of interest. It is necessary to study in detail the personality of a citizen, his needs, actions performed, lifestyle, character, intellectual abilities, education and environment. In law enforcement, this is called obtaining the characterizing material carried out by conducting operational search activities. After analyzing all the data of the person of interest, we can conclude about the qualities of the personality and interests of the object for further establishing psychological contact, determining the line of behavior, tactics and interaction with a specific person.

In addition to analyzing and obtaining information about the person of interest, the employee himself must be able to have an interlocutor to himself. The operative can reach the location by a neat appearance, communication manners, positive mood, tact, friendliness, sense of humor, etc. It is worth noting that the first impression plays an integral role in the perception of a person. Accordingly, an operational officer should always have socio-psychological training in order to win over not only interested citizens, but also those people who are negative and do not want to come into contact with employees in any way. The operative should be friendly and tactful, the very beginning of the conversation plays an important role in the formation of communication. One of the components of psychological contact is the contact of views, when the eyes interact, a person understands that they are listening to him, they are interested in him, his information is important for the interlocutor. As an example, let's consider some animals that look into each other's eyes when they meet, this is how the communication process takes place, since you can tell and learn a lot from the eyes, they understand what to expect in response (aggression, friendliness, etc.), as well as people, contact of views is an integral component of communication.

One of the main tasks of an operational officer is to identify and overcome psychological barriers in various ways that arise not only among citizens, but also among the employee himself. Special training, experience and skills in performing various tasks allow employees to effectively carry out self-regulation. If an employee is negative or nervous, in such an atmosphere, the interlocutor will feel tension and negativity on the part of the employee, while losing the location for mutual communication.

It is important to note that the process of the emergence and development of a trusting relationship between an operative and a citizen is practically impossible without establishing psychological contact. The ability of an operative employee to understand the psychology of another person, modeling feelings and putting himself in the place of an opponent, as well as to feel the experiences of the interlocutor, his emotions, feelings and morale, at the right moments to provide verbal support by showing his interest in the conversation allows you to establish contact and have the interlocutor to yourself. If the operative employee in the process of communication will show excessive activity, not allowing the interlocutor to speak, psychological contact may be difficult. The moment of dialogue is important, showing respect and a certain attentiveness to the views, thoughts and positions of the interlocutor.

It is necessary to catch the mood of a person, his emotional state: excitement, frustration, positive, fright. Depending on this, choose the manner of communication and the right words, remove psychological tension. Until the psychological tension is removed, the necessary contact will not occur ^[8]. The employee must understand the characteristic qualities of a person by appearance, such features leave a specific imprint on the appearance of each citizen, a trained operative, based on the characteristic attributes of appearance, will quickly build a dialogue. For example, he will build a dialogue on some neutral topic, based on any elements of clothing, jewelry, objects that the interlocutor has with him, listening to a citizen when talking about a particular thing, do not interrupt, let him speak out, showing his interest in this issue, giving him the opportunity to relax from possible tension. Feeling the interest of the employee, the citizen begins to relax, giving himself the opportunity to present information to the extent that he wishes.

The establishment of a trusting relationship may arise as a result of common interests or other ties. In the event that these connections were not found, then it makes sense to work out their appearance, for operatives working in intelligence, this is called "legending", that is, in a certain way, all moments to the smallest detail will be invented and carefully processed.

Modern technologies have reached a high level, there are many special techniques that can inspire a person with a sense of trust. To gain trust - that is, to somehow position a person so that he is ready to fulfill your requests. Any citizen has his own system of worldview, perception of reality and manner of behavior, which can be used for the purpose of psychological influence on a citizen: creating the necessary images, environment, conditions, etc.

A qualified operative, knowing the characteristics of the person of interest, can use neuro-linguistic programming techniques (hereinafter NLP), for example, "tuning", this is a common technique of manipulating the interlocutor.

NLP is a guide to using a person's resources to influence the will of another person for a specific purpose. This is a system of techniques and practices of a psychological nature, which is aimed at modeling the subjective reactions of a person to external factors that are necessary for the interlocutor ^[9]. Everyone is interested in the interlocutor with whom there is something in common. The "adjustment" technique is specifically aimed at the realization of the subconscious trust of the person of interest, that is, it has such components as:

- gesture adjustment;

- speech adjustment;

- adjustment to the pose;

- psychological adjustment;

- adjustment to breathing.

When in direct contact with a citizen, the operative needs to be as attentive as possible to all the details of the interlocutor's behavior. In order to adjust to the speed and depth of breathing, gestures, posture, it is necessary to copy the interlocutor to some extent. Duplicate the pose of the interlocutor, so that the person of interest does not notice the fact of copying. First of all, it is necessary to evaluate the behavior of the interlocutor, pay attention to the sequence in which the poses change, when certain gestures are performed. It is necessary to copy his movements a little late, for example, first make the same tilt of the head, hold his hands, and then all the other positions of the person, so that the adjustment itself is as little as possible noticeable.

It is quite difficult to adjust to the interlocutor's breathing, the operative must breathe with the same depth and intensity as the person he is interested in ^[10]. When a person breathes too fast or too slowly, you need to follow either the inhalation or exhalation, that is, not breathe every inhale and exhale together with the interlocutor, but for example, exhale for every second or third exhalation of the interlocutor.

The technique of "adjustment" activates a strong evolutionary program "friend – foe", which we have left from our animal ancestors. In order for the interlocutor to perceive you as his, it is necessary to become his mirror image as imperceptibly as possible, that is, this is exactly the similarity due to which the person of interest at a certain subconscious level will perceive you as a member of his tribe, family, thus gaining trust ^[11].

At the moment of communication, in order to adapt to speech, it is necessary to notice and copy intonation, the very manner of speaking, for example, to stretch or slow down words. It is necessary to listen to the conversation of the interlocutor and when he uses any words of parasites, notice them and insert them into his context, they can also help in establishing psychological contact. During the use of these techniques, the operative employee will be on the territory of another person, it is necessary not to forget about this, any wrong word or deed will become a significant obstacle to entering into trust with the interlocutor.

The use of the "tuning" technique activates mirror neurons located in the brain, working with which helps to cause neural connections that determine the emergence of a sense of trust.

There are many other NLP techniques aimed at establishing and increasing the level of trust, both individually for one object and for a group of objects. To get a noticeable result from these techniques and apply them not publicly, training and work with one's emotional intelligence, as well as awareness, are necessary ^{[13, 14]}.

In the course of the study, we found that a trusting relationship during communication is always preceded by the establishment of psychological contact, in the absence of it, the emergence of trust is almost impossible. In addition, trust is the formation of certain synoptic or neural connections that are formed as a result of certain events or actions in the human brain. The more often this connection is formed and strengthened, the stronger the sense of trust that arises. This information may allow the operative to use the possibilities of neuro-linguistic programming to stimulate the formation of neural connections in order to establish trusting relationships. In the case of working with a suspect or accused, this makes it possible to involve the specified person in cooperation by concluding a pre-trial agreement ^[12].

It is worth noting that the information obtained by entering into a forcibly established trust relationship with the object can be used as evidence in criminal proceedings against the citizen himself. These events can cause moral and moral experiences, both of the operative himself, and provoke a negative attitude and reaction to him from others, which creates an additional psycho-emotional burden on the employee. Therefore, from the point of view of the theory of justice, it is possible to use a lesser "evil", that is, deception, abuse of trust, misleading in order to suppress a greater "evil".