The Place and Role of a Pre-Trial Detention Center in the Counteraction to Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances

The article analyzes the role of a pre-trial detention center as a subjects of anti-drug activity and a penal institution. The author uses the official data of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia to provide various indicators of illicit narcotics and psychotropic substance trafficking in penal institutions. She also relies on the results of a survey of penitentiary employees on the issue of increasing the detention center effectiveness in counteracting drug trafficking. Criminal-minded people (including those who were engaged in illegal drug trafficking) impinge upon the stability and controllability of the regime in pre-trial detention centers. The author examines the legal foundations and basic directions of countering the illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in pre-trial detention centers and draws attention to the fact that the operational-search activity carried out in pre-trial detention centers is possible only with the obligatory participation of the operational officer. Among the conditions for the correct organization of interaction between the structural units in the pre-trial detention center, a special place belongs to the organizational and functional structure. Having analyzed the legal norms consolidating the methods and means of operational work, including the exchange of operatively significant information and the works about management in law enforcement agencies, the author concludes that it is necessary to combine the positions of deputy for operational work and deputy for regime to coordinate efforts aimed at countering drug trafficking in pre-trial detention centers. Despite the existing contradictions in the organizational and functional structure of the detention facility, the unity and mutual assistance of all structural units of the detention facility to counteract illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances requires the implementation of a unified state anti-drug strategy.

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