Scientific and Technical Support for the Investigation of Criminal Offenders in the Territory of Eastern Siberia in Pre-Soviet Times

Sysoev Aleksei Aleksandrovich PhD in History Associate Professor at the Department of Tactical and Weapons Training of East Siberian Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 664074, Russia, Irkutskaya Oblast' oblast', g. Irkutsk, ul. Lermontova, 110 daosss1972@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The practice of combating criminal crime in pre-Soviet times demonstrated the urgent need to apply the latest achievements of science and technology.

"Officials and authorities should be armed with means of struggle that fully correspond to the weapons and sophisticated techniques of modern thieves, robbers and murderers," wrote Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev, a prominent figure in criminal investigation, the head of the Moscow Detective Police, state councilor. According to the well-known criminologist, "among such means of struggle, the most powerful weapon was knowledge, a comprehensive scientific study of the criminal world in order to practically apply the correct scientifically-based methods and means of preventing, suppressing and investigating crimes."^{[1, p. 180]}

Vasily Ivanovich was one of the initiators of the introduction of scientific methods into the activities of domestic law enforcement agencies. A practitioner and a scientist in one person, V.I. Lebedev argued that the use of registration records, the use of fingerprinting, anthropometry, photography and official police dogs is a prerequisite for the successful fight against progressive criminal crime.   

"The correct registration and the exact fulfillment of all the basic requirements are of particular importance at the moment of the unusual development of crime that is currently being experienced," senior officials of the police department also noted on this occasion.^{[2, p. 28]}

Already in the second half of the XIX century, the steady decline in the personal and property security of the Russian population required domestic law enforcement agencies to take the most drastic measures. Against this background, the rapid growth of criminal crime in the Eastern outskirts of the Empire, as well as possible indicated the need to use advanced methods of investigation.

By this time, Eastern Siberia was a place of mass exile of criminal criminals. According to approximate estimates of researchers of the domestic penitentiary system, only during the XIX century, about 900 thousand people were moved from the central and southern regions of the Russian Empire to Siberia for various offenses.^{[3, p. 9]} By the beginning of the XX century, there were 29,8577 exiles in Siberia^{[4, p. 22]}. In its Eastern part, where they were traditionally exiled for committing the most serious offenses, about 142,391 people were serving their sentences^{[5, p. 32]} Thus, according to officials of the main prison administration, the total number of exiles was then "almost 1/6 of the real population of the region".^{[6, p. 158]}

Most of this diverse mass was not actually controlled by the authorities and had unlimited opportunities to move from place to place. Pointing to this factor, domestic criminologists noted that "half of the settlers did not stay in their places of reckoning, and half of them turned into vagrants who, due to their entire past and continuous movement through prisons and stages, were deprived of almost any signs of morality."^{[7, p. 65]} Modern researchers of the domestic penitentiary system estimate the number of such vagrants in the territory of Eastern Siberia by 1898 at 45610 people. There were especially many of them in the Irkutsk province – 29,403 people^{[8, p. 36]}

That is why the first attempt to modernize the system of investigation of fugitive criminals was made by Irkutsk officials back in 1865. Then the Irkutsk judicial cabinet appealed to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Count P. A. Valuev, with a proposal to "organize a special department at the provincial prison for removing cards from convicts and vagrants, in the form of early detention of the former in case they escape, and speeding up the investigation and trial of the latter."

The project involved the production of photographic cards from all exiles passing through the Irkutsk prison castle. The cards were planned to be stored in a special prison album under a known number and distributed in case of escape of criminals to the police of the Trans-Baikal region and Irkutsk and Yenisei provinces.

According to preliminary calculations, an annual allowance from the treasury in the amount of 500 rubles was required for the organization of the photographic department. Irkutsk merchant Grossman expressed a desire to undertake the practical implementation of photographic works. The production of one card was estimated by him at 75 kopecks, copies – 25 kopecks. It was planned to produce no more than 500 photographic images during the year and make up to 1000 copies from them.

However, after reviewing the project in the highest instance, the innovative proposal was rejected. According to the Minister, in connection with "the unsatisfactory arrangement of hard labor, when such a significant number of escapes are made from them, there was no reason to carry out the explained measure on the grounds proposed by the Irkutsk Judicial Committee, since the sum of all expenses amounted to a significant figure."[The State Archive of the Irkutsk region (hereinafter – GAIO), f. 24, op. 2, d. 22, l. 1-2.] By simple calculations, the highest officials of the Empire came to the conclusion that for the costs of photographing all the fugitives, it would take annually not 500, as the local authorities assumed, but 7000 rubles. in accordance with the real the state of affairs.

Thus, in Eastern Siberia, due to financial difficulties, the use of forensic police photography for criminal investigation for many years remained only the lot of single enthusiasts.

Information about one of them has been preserved thanks to the Irkutsk chronicle of Nit Stepanovich Romanov, who recorded in his writings that on February 17, 1897, albums with photographs of types of murderers, vagabonds and "changers" compiled by the investigative bailiff of the Irkutsk City Police Nikolai Dmitrievich Dobronravov were shown at the St. Petersburg Anthropological Society.[Romanov N.S. Chronicle of the city of Irkutsk for 1881-1901 / Edition prepared by N.V. Kulikausken. Irkutsk, 1993. p. 365] A few years later in August 1901, according to another Irkutsk chronicler Yuri Petrovich Kolmakov, through the efforts of N.D. Dobronravov, an exhibition of photographic cards of outstanding murderers and thieves was opened at the city police department.[Irkutsk Chronicle of 1661-1940 . The compiler, the author of the preface and notes Yu.P. Kolmakov. Irkutsk: "Impression", 2003. p. 138]

However, individual initiatives on the ground without a centralized system of registration of criminal offenders based on the use of scientifically based methods could not have any serious impact on improving the criminogenic situation in the region. Moreover, if the organization of photographing criminals turned out to be impossible due to insufficient funding, then the use of the Bertillon anthropometric system was not widely used due to the low professional training of the Siberian police officers.

Successfully used by the police of St. Petersburg, where the anthropometric bureau has been operating since June 1, 1890, A. Bertillon's system has shown quite high efficiency in combating criminal crime. The method of registration developed by the French detective was based on measuring certain parts of the human body and allowed identifying the criminal with a sufficiently high degree of reliability. The positive experience of the Metropolitan police and the absence of significant expenditures on the use of the Bertillon system suggested its further widespread distribution throughout the Empire.

Therefore, already on September 15, 1901, by the circular order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 4789, all heads of provinces were invited to "enter into a discussion on the organization of anthropometric stations in the provinces." Due to the fact that "anthropometric stations, with the immediate purpose of identifying the accused or suspected, and sometimes just suspicious persons, are one of the means of search," the provincial leadership was offered for the first time to limit itself to at least one station in each provincial city.[The State Archive of the Trans–Baikal Territory (hereinafter - GAZK), f. 26, op. 2, d. 12, l. 3.] As a result of the initiative of the central office, a year later, according to the modern researcher S.A. Nevsky, "the number of such stations increased in Russia to 76".[9. p. 120]

Since January 1, 1907, a registration department has been functioning at the police department, designed to collect and classify the available information about the most dangerous criminals. To make inquiries and establish the identity of repeat offenders, registration cards of criminals and their photographs were used. For this purpose, the central photographic bureau was included in the department, in which all the photos of criminals and cards of the victims were stored. At the same time, the attention of police officials on the ground was focused, "on timely photographing, at the slightest opportunity, both the places and the situation of the commission of outstanding crimes, as well as the deceased killed and found of unknown rank, trying to get photos from the corpse or the situation of the crime scene at the very first moment."[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 12, l. 6.]

An additional impetus to the introduction of innovations in the field of criminal investigation was given by the law "On the organization of the detective unit", which entered into force on July 6, 1908. In accordance with the law, specialized police bodies – detective departments - were created in all major administrative centers of the Empire. Without fail, all departments were equipped with devices for registering criminals. In accordance with paragraph 29 of the "Instructions to the ranks of detective departments", organizationally, an operational registration bureau was included in each detective department, which was to "form the main part of the internal organization of the detective department" and ensure the use of the latest advances in criminology.

In the administrative centers of Eastern Siberia, detective departments have been established at the police departments of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Chita. And as Vladimir Ivanovich Markov, the military governor of the Trans-Baikal Region, informed the Irkutsk Governor-General, "the detective department [was] equipped with improved drugs and manuals based on scientific data, both on methods of investigating crimes and methods of tracing and identifying criminals."[GAZK, f. 25, op. 3, d. 1737, l. 161.]

The property inventories that have come down to our time confirm the correspondence of the highest officials of the province and allow us to judge about the fairly good technical equipment of the detective departments. So, according to the inventory of personal belongings in the Chita detective department, detectives were armed with: "a box of an anthropometric instrument of the Bertillon system, a photographic manual apparatus of the Kodak system with two tin cassettes, one photographic apparatus of the Bertillon system with a lens, four cassettes and a tripod, a chair for prisoners when photographing with a head holder, a fingerprint device, a ruler with metric divisions for registration, a magnifying glass "Telescope", a technical tape measure with divisions 5 fathoms long, a magnifying glass for disassembling fingerprint prints, a table of irises of the eyes." Appropriate instructions and methodological literature were attached to the technical equipment. The library of the department consisted of the following publications: "General instructions concerning anthropometric measurement", "Instructions for photographing criminals", "Verbal portrait maps", "Registration and identification using finger prints".[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 68, l. 34.]

Thus, detective departments in Eastern Siberia received a sufficient amount of specialized literature and technical means required for the application of scientifically-based methods of the criminal registration system in operational activities. However, official correspondence preserved in the state archives of the Irkutsk region, Krasnoyarsk and Trans-Baikal Territories suggests that the low level of professional training of detective police personnel precluded compliance with the requirements of the "Instructions to the ranks of detective departments" regarding the use of available technical means and the involvement of operational personnel in this work.

The absence of the very possibility of obtaining practical experience in the use of advanced methods of registering offenders eliminated the content of paragraph 29 of the "Instructions", which stated that the registration and photographing of criminals should have been assigned to one of the permanent employees of the detective department. In fact, even the heads of operational units did not know the basics of fingerprinting and anthropometry.

This is evidenced by a memo from the head of the Chita detective department, Vasily Aleksandrovich Svitnev, in which he informed the governor of the Trans-Baikal region that "I, as well as the former head of the Yalin department, do not properly register criminals and do not use methods according to the Bertillon system... and we cannot apply both correct fingerprinting, as well as anthropometric description, photographing and calculating fingerprinting."[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 38, l. 2.] Vasily Alexandrovich explained this by the fact that during the entire period of service neither he nor his predecessors received professional training at specially organized courses in St. Petersburg.

Things were no better for Irkutsk detectives, who, according to the opinion of the adviser of the 1st department of the Provincial Administration, P.N. Podyapolsky, who was inspecting their activities, "were completely unfamiliar with the ministerial instructions for detective departments and carried out the investigation in primitive ways."[GAIO, f. 32, op. 13, d. 21, l. 13.]

The lack of knowledge and skills among the officials of the Siberian police in the field of the use of registration tools seemed to be a widespread phenomenon by the specified time and was determined mainly by the lack of the very possibility of obtaining special training by its employees.

The available archival materials allow us to judge that for less than 9 years of the existence of the detective departments of Irkutsk and Chita, out of 116 police officers, only one employee has been trained in special courses on the use of technical means of registration. In January 1917, thanks to an exclusively personal initiative, the head of the Chita detective department, V.A. Svitnev, was sent to study in Petrograd.[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 38, l. 2.] If the rest of the detectives were trained, it was only according to textbooks and other technical literature, without any consultations from specialists.

The insufficient competence of the police in the use of technical means of registration was aggravated by the low level of literacy of the local population, which was two times lower than in the central regions of Russia ^{[10, p. 15]}. So, in 1910, of the two police supervisors of the Irkutsk detective department, only one, Bychkov, turned out to be, according to the reviews of the inspecting persons, "a fairly capable and competent official," while the second, Tyshkovsky, was recognized as not knowledgeable either in writing or reading.[GAIO, f. 32, op. 13, d. 21, l. 15.]

The current situation was complicated by problems with the financing of detective agencies on the ground. So, rented in Krylenko's house on Yeniseiskaya St. to accommodate the Chita detective department, the apartment did not have separate rooms for photographing and carrying out anthropometric measurements of criminals. Therefore, "while it was warm," recalled the head of the department Kuzma Glebovich Datsenko, anthropometric measurements and photographing of criminals were carried out in the yard." When the cold weather came, it was decided to stop the registration of criminals, since "there was no room suitable for this in the apartment occupied by the detective department."[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 263, l. 42.] 

In a situation where the vast majority of law enforcement officers had no professional education and had only basic reading and writing skills, the effective use of the Bertillon anthropometric system, photography and fingerprinting was not possible in principle. The same signs and photographs that still managed to be obtained, according to the police officials themselves, "were taken so carelessly and haphazardly that there was no way to use the accumulated material."[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 12, l. 2.]

As a result, according to the police department, "in most cases, registration cards were not delivered at all, or were sent several months late." Only in January 1915, out of 107 detective departments, only 20 departments presented registration cards. Quite justifiably, the Ministry's officials considered this deficiency "an absolutely unacceptable obstacle to the implementation of the police department's proposed concentration of the largest and most complete registration material in the central registration bureau."[GAZK, f. 26, op. 2, d. 29, l. 75.]

In this context, it should be noted that the problem of collecting and systematizing scattered information concerning the search for certain persons located within the Empire worsened with distance from the central regions and acquired the most acute forms on its eastern outskirts. So, for example, for the police of the Trans-Baikal region, cases when materials collected for one person turned out to be dispersed in different cases and archives were ubiquitous and had a systemic nature. The criminal investigation system used here was decentralized in nature. The essence of it was that the officials of the "local police" themselves sent out announcements about the search for a particular person to the institutions of the penitentiary system, police units and township boards. The most complete idea of the mechanism of this type of search can be obtained by considering a set of measures carried out by the office of the military governor of the Trans-Baikal region to establish the identity of an unknown person who called himself Von-Plike Kvasnetsky.

For this purpose, a request was sent to the Alexandrovsky District Police Department to conduct a so-called "street". The officials instructed their provincial colleagues to "show the ranks of the prison guards and the ss. convict teams a photo card attached to the petition, whether anyone recognizes the identity of any of the fugitive convicts depicted in it, and then send all correspondence for the same purpose to the Tyshkovsky district, so that the correspondence from this district would be transferred to Korsakov district, and then, after making sure that the street was made in all prisons, return the correspondence to the governor's office."[GAZK, f.26, op. 1, d. 129, l. 109.]

Streams of similar petitions generated endless paperwork. During the year, tens of thousands of units of such correspondence passed through an ordinary police unit as a result of such "bureaucratization" of criminal investigation, considerable funds and time were spent. The absence of a common data bank containing information about offenders who have ever committed criminal offenses allowed numerous repeat offenders to walk free under false names. As a result, the phenomenon of name change has acquired the widest scale in the region. Often, due to the imperfection of the registration system, the same criminal was detained and convicted of illegal acts under different names.

The circular search system introduced on the territory of the Russian Empire in 1913 was designed to exclude such incidents. However, the key problem of the Siberian police, which consisted in a severe personnel crisis, did not allow the new system to be used fully, because the effectiveness of the circular search was determined by the effectiveness of the system of registration and accounting of criminals, which in turn directly depended on professional qualities performers.

The requirements of the "Instructions to the ranks of detective departments" on the creation of registration bureaus in the structure of each investigative body, providing for specially trained employees, were not actually observed. In principle, it was not possible to prepare a specialist who was not only competent in the registration of criminals, but also possessed the entire complex of measures for systematization of information, identification and preparation of criminal record certificates. In conditions of personnel starvation, there could be no question of allocating individual employees to manage the registration bureau. According to the testimony of Irkutsk residents, contemporaries of those events, "often, when solving complex crimes for several days, the department generally remained with only one person on duty, whose duties included one of the four full-time police officers of the department."[GAIO, f. 91, op. 1, d. 2846, l. 51.]

"With the existing staff of the department, the head of the Irkutsk detective department N.A. reported on this to the provincial board. Romanov, it is not possible, for a more rational formulation of the case, to distribute the work of the department's ranks into groups headed by at least one full-time responsible agent of the department."^{[11, p. 48]} In the detective departments of Krasnoyarsk and Chita, belonging to an even lower 4th category, the situation with staffing was even more complicated.

Constant risks and low wages caused another problem – the high rate of rotation of personnel. In Irkutsk alone, during the 9 years of the existence of the detective police, with its full-time staff of 8 employees, five chiefs, sixteen police supervisors and thirty-three policemen were replaced.[GAIO, f. 91, op. 1, d. 2844, 2891; op. 2, d. 1901. Staff turnover was even higher in the Chita detective department, where six bosses, nineteen police supervisors and thirty-six policemen were replaced during the same period.[GAZK, f. 26, op. 1, d. 344,475,513; op. 2, d. 15, 20, 30, 31, 38, 63, 68.] Such a high dynamics of the change of employees significantly reduced the professional level of detectives, whose qualifications were directly dependent on the time of their tenure, because in the period under consideration During the period, the necessary knowledge and skills were acquired by law enforcement officers exclusively in the course of practical activities.

Thus, archival sources that have come down to our time allow us to judge that until the local police were disbanded in 1917, there were no specialized bureaus in their structure designed to register and register criminal offenders.

The availability of special technical means and educational literature in the material equipment of the detective police of Eastern Siberia was offset by the lack of professional training and the low level of literacy of its employees. Due to the considerable distance from the center and the severe personnel shortage, it was not possible to attend special advanced training courses and schools for the ranks of the detective police. For the entire period of existence of the detective departments of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Chita, only one employee who visited them on his own initiative received special training at two-month courses for the heads of detective departments.

The initiatives of individual police officials without adequate financial support and the necessary staffing could not have a proper impact on the overall state of affairs. The problem of registering criminal offenders using advanced scientific and technical methods on the territory of the eastern outskirts of the Empire remained unresolved until the events of February 1917.

Due to the lack of effective means and methods of identifying criminals, the criminal investigation system of Eastern Siberia did not fulfill its main tasks. On the territory of the region, cases of bureaucratization of operational search activities and name changes were widespread. In the conditions of the actual inability of local police to identify suspects in crimes and to find wanted persons, numerous repeat offenders were able to commit illegal acts with impunity under false names without adequate punishment. The remoteness from the metropolis, the personnel crisis and insufficient funding had a decisive impact on the very possibility of using advanced scientific and technical achievements in detective work.