The causes and methods of combating corruption in the internal affairs bodies in the Russian Federation

Ageev Vyacheslav Nikolaevich PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Linguistics; National Research University "MEI" 111250, Russia, Moscow, Krasnokazarmennaya str., 14 ageev_fksu@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Public authorities at all levels are subject to corruption. This circumstance has a detrimental effect on their activities, undermines the trust of citizens in state institutions and can lead to absolutely devastating consequences ^{[1, p. 49]}.

Corruption in law enforcement agencies causes a particularly acute negative reaction among citizens. Being aware of the fact that corruption affects the bodies that, according to the legislation, are called upon to protect the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, the population feels especially unprotected. As M. V. Baranchikova and Yu. V. Kiryukhina quite rightly point out, "the corruption of law enforcement agencies does not allow effective counteraction to those processes that really threaten the security of the individual, society and the state" ^{[2, p. 124]}.

Despite this, employees of the internal affairs bodies (hereinafter referred to as police officers) play an essential role in the mechanism of state power. Most of the population relies on police assistance in critical situations, both at the domestic and public levels. A citizen, faced with the actions of persons or organizations against him, first of all, depending on the situation, either summons police officers to the scene of the incident, or applies to the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of Internal Affairs) with an appropriate statement.

There are a lot of monographs, dissertations, articles and other materials in the scientific community devoted to combating corruption in public authorities in general, and in law enforcement agencies in particular. This circumstance not only highlights the complex nature of corruption, but also determines the need for an integrated approach to its study.

The problem of corruption in law enforcement agencies is studied by scientists of various fields: both criminological, economic, social, historical, and psychological reasons for committing corruption crimes by police officers are identified, various options and ways of countering corruption in these bodies are proposed.

M. V. Baranchikova and Yu. V. Kiryukhina conducted a very thorough study of the criminal law and sociological aspects of corruption ^[2]. The concept and types of corruption in the internal affairs bodies are considered by O. V. Ovchinnikova ^[3]. E. I. Tamazov gives a criminological description of corruption crimes committed by law enforcement officers ^[4]. A. A. Timofeeva and M. M. Eremenko in their article analyze the historical and legal aspects of corruption ^[5]. S. M. Malkov discusses the causes of corruption in the internal affairs bodies ^[6]. The criminological analysis of the personality of an employee of the internal affairs bodies is carried out by A. In Piskur ^[7]. A number of works are devoted to the psychological portrait of a corrupt official and the conditions that led to his criminal activity. Among them are the works of A. V. Kokurin and V. E. Petrova ^[8], S. E. Vorodyukhina and V. A. Lysenko ^[9], E. V. Nikulchenkova ^[10], G. S. Goncharenko ^[11] and many others. The works of P. A. Kabanov ^[12] and I. R. Garifullin ^[13] are devoted to the promotion of anti-corruption activities.

The subject of the study is the causes of the emergence and development of corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs, the identity of an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs who committed a corruption crime, ways to counter corruption in the internal affairs bodies.

This study is intended to conduct a generalized analysis of available scientific papers analyzing the causes of corruption crimes committed by police officers of various types, as well as measures aimed at combating corruption in internal affairs bodies. In this regard, the author sets himself the following tasks:

- identify the causes of corruption in the internal affairs bodies based on the analysis of scientific research;

- identify ways to counteract corruption in the studied bodies;

- formulate proposals to improve the anti-corruption system in the internal affairs bodies.

The relevance of this study is determined by the fact that despite numerous studies on combating corruption in public authorities of the Russian Federation, including in the Department of Internal Affairs, attempts to combat corruption at the state level, corruption remains a serious problem that undermines the authority of both public authorities in general and law enforcement agencies in particular.

The fundamental law regulating anti-corruption in Russia is Federal Law No. 273–FZ of December 25, 2008 "On Combating Corruption" (hereinafter referred to as the Federal Law "On Combating Corruption"), measures to combat corruption in internal affairs bodies are set out in Federal Law No. 3-FZ of February 07, 2011 "On the Police", as well as in Federal Law No. 342-FZ of November 30, 2011 "On Service in the Internal Affairs Bodies of the Russian Federation and Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation", criminal liability measures for committing corruption crimes are provided for by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 63-FZ of June 13, 1996. These normative legal acts formed the legal basis of the study.

Various methods of scientific cognition were used during the research. This is a dialectical method that allowed us to obtain objective information about the processes and phenomena associated with corruption, and an institutional method, and a method of analysis, and a comparative legal method, without which practically no legal research can do.

A large number of works have been devoted to the analysis of regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation on anti-corruption issues. After the adoption of the Federal Law "On Combating Corruption", the topic of combating corruption has received a new round. In pursuance of this law, a lot of normative legal acts of various levels have appeared, all public authorities have brought all available services into line with this law; annual and other reporting procedures have been developed and implemented in state and municipal service bodies, various conferences, round tables on corruption issues and much more are being held. In this regard, the author does not set himself the task of analyzing anti-corruption regulatory legal acts.

It should be noted that, in general, the proportion of corruption-related crimes among officially registered crimes is insignificant. Thus, by the end of 2023, bribery accounted for only 1% of the total number of crimes ^[14], and for the period from January to October 2024 – 1.3% ^[15]. Unfortunately, this fact is due not to the fact that there are fewer corruption crimes, but to the fact that corruption crimes have a high latency. Both civil servants themselves, who receive illegal remuneration, and citizens or legal entities who transfer this remuneration are interested in concealing their illegal actions. Therefore, despite the low quantitative results of corruption-related crimes, their condition cannot but cause serious concerns.

Meanwhile, even in a relatively small number of identified corruption crimes, police officers occupy the leading position in terms of the number of employees brought to criminal responsibility every year.

Despite the fact that today a full-fledged anti-corruption system has been created in both federal and territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the issue of combating corruption remains complex and requires further close attention to this problem, appropriate actions and solutions, and requires improvement of anti-corruption measures.

Summarizing the rich scientific experience on the subject under study, it seems possible to identify several types of causes of corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs. These are economic, political, socio-psychological and other reasons.

For economic reasons, researchers give a confident first place ^{[2] [3] [6] [9] [10]}. The economic benefit of both an official and a person who is interested in receiving any public service becomes the main cause of corruption.

Among the reasons that force an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs to seek economic benefits include both low monetary maintenance, insufficient social security, and the lack of necessary state guarantees.

For a person committing a corruption crime, the goal of material enrichment becomes a priority, he is driven by an irresistible desire, if not to increase significantly, then at least to satisfy his material needs. This goal prevails over the desire of a corrupt official to improve his official position or to receive the patronage of the leadership. It is noteworthy that this trend persists at all levels of the ATS system, that is, despite the place of service, the position held, the ATS officer commits an official offense for the purpose of profit.

The political reasons that give rise to corruption in law enforcement agencies include shortcomings in the legal regulation of police activities, the complexity and frequent unjustifiability of bureaucratic procedures, a low degree of protection of the rights and freedoms of police personnel, etc.

One of these reasons is the presence in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of a system of indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of its services and departments.

The Department of Criminal Law and Criminology of the Siberian Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia conducted a survey of police officers in the form of a questionnaire, during which it was proposed to indicate the causes of corruption-related crimes in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

So, the presence of this so–called "stick" system as a provocateur of corruption crimes was noted by the majority of police officers - 63% of the respondents ^{[16, p. 35]}.

Currently, the activities of the bodies included in the Ministry of Internal Affairs system are evaluated on the basis of various statistical reports. The main criterion indicating effective police activity is the dynamics of the number of crimes and the level of detection of these crimes. The conclusions drawn on the basis of these indicators have a direct impact on the encouragement or disciplinary responsibility of police officers, as well as on the possibility of their promotion through the ranks. However, as many researchers note, one or another level of crime is not only the result of the activities of law enforcement agencies, this level depends on various factors that do not depend on the activities of police officers, on factors that law enforcement officers cannot directly influence ^{[6, p. 36]}.

Such an assessment policy certainly leads to the fact that police officers of different levels commit corruption crimes in order to distort unfavorable indicators in favor of favorable ones.

As for the degree of protection of police personnel, despite the fact that police officers are vested with authority to protect and protect law and order, they often themselves become victims of violations of their rights and freedoms. The formula "the customer is always right", which has been firmly rooted in our society lately, endangers the law enforcement activities of employees. Given the contingent that a policeman has to deal with on a daily basis, there is a high probability of unfair complaints, denunciations, unauthorized and illegal video and audio recordings that can be used against him. Unfortunately, the management of territorial departments often prefers not to understand each situation, but to apply disciplinary measures to the employee.

As the researchers note, these circumstances do not create grounds for healthy competition in the labor market of law enforcement agencies ^{[16, p. 82]}, and one cannot disagree with this statement.

The socio-psychological causes of corruption include the causes directly related to the personality of an employee of the Department of Internal Affairs.

The above-mentioned causes of corruption include both legal and moral nihilism of police officers, elementary greed and thirst for profit, the desire for promotion at any cost, the idea that the police are elite units that do not obey the laws of the state and society, the psychological immaturity of individual police officers, which prevents making the right decisions. These reasons are the main motives for the activities of corrupt communities both in public authorities in general and in the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in particular.

Researchers note that corrupt behavior is a type of social behavior distorted by pseudo–value attitudes that become the norm in human life ^{[17, p. 217]}.

The peculiarity of service in the ranks of the Department of Internal Affairs, constant stressful situations associated with both direct service and interaction within the team, inevitably deform the psychological component of the personality of a police officer, as a result of which a person ceases to condemn corrupt behavior and accepts it as the norm. This is an indicator of the formation of corrupt behavior.

Many researchers note the low level of education of employees as one of the reasons for corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs. We can only partially agree with this opinion, since there is an interesting feature that is specific specifically for law enforcement officers. Having knowledge of criminal and criminal procedure legislation, criminalistics, anti-corruption legislation, having experience in law enforcement agencies, a police officer uses this knowledge to evade responsibility, to conceal corruption crimes.

In addition, one of the factors contributing to the formation of corrupt behavior in law enforcement agencies is the formation of a negative image of an internal affairs officer in the public space. The media plays a big role in this. To effectively combat corruption, it is important, among other things, to establish state control over the coverage of corruption-related cases, shift the focus to the available positive results, highlight the facts of refusals by police officers from bribes and their prevention of such crimes. The media is replete with news and reports about the exposure of another corrupt official in uniform, although there is also enough information to the contrary, only it has no place in news feeds.

For example, on November 22, 2024, a resident of Pyatigorsk tried to bribe an employee of the Drug Control Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic for the release from criminal liability of her husband, who was detained on suspicion of organizing the illegal sale of narcotic drugs. The suspect handed over funds in the amount of 3 million rubles to the employee, leaving them in the car. After that, the woman was detained by operatives of the own security unit of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs, to whom the drug policeman informed him of inciting him to a corruption crime ^[18].

On November 19, 2024, employees of the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Komi Republic stopped an attempt to bribe a policeman in the amount of 1.7 million rubles. The suspect, an individual entrepreneur who sold nicotine–containing products without appropriate labeling, offered a bribe to a police officer for the return of seized products and was detained while transferring the first part of the bribe in the amount of 500 thousand rubles to an officer of the Department of Internal Affairs acting as part of an operational experiment ^[19].

In November 2024, a driver who does not have the right to drive a vehicle and trying to avoid administrative responsibility, during a conversation with the head of the Traffic Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia "Vasilevsky" offered him money in the amount of 20 thousand rubles. The police officer refused and called an investigative task force to the scene ^[20].

In August 2024, an employee of a clothing store in one of the stores in the city of Arzamas was detained for attempting to bribe an operative of the OEBiPK OMVD of Russia "Arzamassky", who was checking on the sale of unmarked clothes. The suspect intentionally put 30,000 rubles in a folder with documents that was with the policeman, suggesting that he stop checking the store ^[21].

And these are only recent examples.

As a separate type of causes of corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs, the author considers it necessary to identify the so-called corporate causes. These include both unfair management decisions and executive orders, as well as compliance with certain tacitly established corporate rules that exist in a particular department of Internal Affairs.

As noted above, in order to improve the established performance indicators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as for a number of other reasons, managers at different levels often make decisions that are assessed by the Department of Internal Affairs as ineffective or unfair, really disrupting the normal course of work of the unit as a whole and the employee in particular. In this regard, the employee has a desire either not to follow the orders of the head, which entails the dismissal of a highly qualified specialist from the service, or, in most cases, the adaptation of employees to existing conditions, expressed in the search for primitive ways to fulfill unfair orders. These methods are usually associated with violation of established legal norms and rules governing the protection of order.

Another manifestation of corporate corruption is the psychological adaptation of a person caught in a corrupt environment.

Researchers pay attention to tools for protecting the human psyche under the influence of stress ^{[10, p. 81]}. In a corporate environment, one of these tools is the subordination of the individual to a system of relationships accepted in a group with certain unspoken rules of behavior. In such a group, common internal corporate values are developed, and in our case, pseudo-values that reflect the strategy of corrupt behavior of this collective. A member of the group who does not obey these corporate rules is rejected, which entails the loss of the individual's ability to make free decisions, and he makes a choice in favor of corrupt behavior, which is the norm for this team, and himself, being in a corrupt environment, begins to perceive such rules as the norm.

As other reasons for corruption in the police department, a high "personnel shortage" in the ranks of police officers is also indicated. In May 2024, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said that the department lacks 152 thousand people. This figure is the national average and accounts for slightly more than 20% of the total number of employees. The figure varies somewhat by different regions and divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Thus, the understaffing of the patrol and guard service of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow is 78% ^[22]. These circumstances entail an increase in the amount of workload on police officers, which leads to low efficiency of their activities.

Summarizing the research available in the Russian scientific community, it seems possible to identify a number of measures aimed at combating corruption in the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

- increasing the salary level of employees, providing state support measures to eliminate the desire for them to receive illegal benefits. It seems that ensuring a decent life for a police officer will not only reduce his interest in committing corruption crimes, but also raise the prestige of the profession, attract highly professional specialists to the ranks of the police;

- organization of an educational process in the ranks of police officers, which will be aimed at forming a negative image of corrupt behavior;

- conducting inspections of various levels, both planned and unplanned;

- conducting a thorough selection of candidates who want to join the Department of Internal Affairs;

- encouragement of employees of the Department of Internal Affairs for conscientious performance of their service;

- increasing the prestige of the police service and attracting qualified personnel in order to fill the shortage of personnel in the Interior Ministry system;

- changing approaches to the system of evaluating the effectiveness of the Department of Internal Affairs.

In addition, it is necessary to ensure a high level of not only anti-corruption, but also professional education of employees, send them to specialized institutions of secondary and higher education, improve their qualifications, and, if necessary, retrain personnel.

In our opinion, it is also necessary to develop a system of values in law enforcement agencies focused on the rejection of corruption in its various forms and manifestations. An important role in the formation of such values is certainly played by the family, social attitudes, culture, the personality of each leader, which must be impeccable, his behavioral norms, and of course the active participation of the police officer himself, both future and present. It is necessary, as the researchers note, to create conditions for the comprehensive development of a police officer, to form in him an awareness of his honorable involvement in law enforcement agencies, protection of human life and state interests, an interest in forming a positive image of an internal affairs officer in the eyes of citizens and civil institutions ^{[17, p. 219]}.

Ideally, a police officer should be a person with a high level of legal culture, strictly observing laws and other normative legal acts, standing guard over the interests of the state as a whole and each person individually, morally stable, seasoned, honest, able to withstand psychological pressure.

During the analysis of scientific research, especially of recent times, attention is drawn to the fact that as one of the effective ways to combat corruption, the authors stopped indicating the tightening of criminal and administrative responsibility for corruption-related crimes. This is due to the fact that despite the fact that the responsibility for committing corruption crimes is becoming tougher, the level of corruption is not decreasing, but, on the contrary, is becoming higher. In this regard, it is noted that the approach providing only for tougher measures of responsibility for these crimes does not solve the problem of corruption ^{[23, p. 170]}. The author also adheres to this position.

Based on the conducted research, it is possible to formulate the following conclusions:

- corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs discredits these bodies and the entire system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the person of citizens and organizations;

- combating corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs should be systematic and comprehensive;

- as a separate type of causes of corruption in the Department of Internal Affairs, it is necessary to identify the so-called corporate causes. These include both unfair management decisions and executive orders, as well as compliance with certain tacitly established corporate rules that exist in a particular department of Internal Affairs;

- in order to effectively combat corruption, it is necessary to establish state control over the coverage of corruption-related cases, shift the focus to the available positive results;

- law enforcement agencies should develop a system of values focused on the rejection of corruption in its various forms and manifestations.

The author also comes to the conclusion that for the successful operation of the state apparatus, positive relations between law enforcement agencies and citizens, institutions of civil society are necessary. Citizens should rely on the Department of Internal Affairs to protect their lives and health, and the police need their support and active interaction on issues within the competence of the Department of Internal Affairs. To do this, the police face the task of maintaining a high level of trust among citizens and public institutions. The main obstacle to this is corruption, which undermines the authority of law enforcement agencies in the eyes of citizens, entails distrust and refusal to interact with police officers.