Attraction of ranks of police of the Tomsk province for illegal actions to responsibility in 1914-1916
The police in the Russian Empire wasn't held in the people in respect, her didn't esteem, and often despised because ranks of police worked out of a legal framework, "wallowed" in bureaucracy and a vzyatnichestvo, arrested and beat the innocent. The administrative power in this question differed in restraint and only small percent of officials subjected to punishments to what archival documents testify. The management of department recognized that such facts take place and they "have to be pursued and eradicated by the most drastic measures". However any anti-corruption actions (we will tell, "clean hands") and large-scale preventive measures it wasn't held. In 1914-1916 the Tomsk governor regularly submitted sheets about involvement of police officers to responsibility. According to sheets follows that police officers were most often made responsible according to Art. 341 (excess or inaction of the power); Art. 347 (insult word or action); Art. 377 and 378 (extortion); Art. 1533 (drawing a heavy beating) and Art. 1540 (illegal detention and conclusion). It is interesting that during stay under a consequence, ranks of police were allowed to continue service in other district or the city. For 19141916 only 27% of affairs were finished by a conviction, from them concerning cool ranks - 7,5%; the lower - 92,5%; most of all cool ranks it was made responsible in 1914 However, from them only three (9%) were condemned. In 1916 the total of affairs was reduced by stages of a consequence and court (in comparison with 1915 for 42%) and for 50% - convictions. Any of cool ranks in 1916 wasn't under examination. On more than 60% of affairs courts pronounced justificatory sentences. In a number of districts of the Tomsk province illegality of actions of police got "total" (from lower to cool ranks) and chronic character, on what specified numerous complaints of the population. To inhabitants to expose careless police officers and to prove their guilt was business by the extremely difficult. Process of the appeal of actions of ranks of police in most cases to anything I didn't lead. The given statistics of a criminal record of local police officers for 1914-1916 visually reflects the relation of the government to "servants monarchic". In most cases offenses of officials the administrative power "suppressed", proceedings didn't initiate and to avoid "people's wrath" transferred officials for continuation of service to other regions. The reserved, "guarding" policy and weak reaction to complaints of the population led to that in public opinion the police already stopped being body of providing a law and order, the guarantor of personal and property security of citizens, and opposite served as a symbol of ignorance, excess and permissiveness of police officers, as became one of factors of crash of the Russian Empire in February, 1917.
Keywords
полиция, полицейские, преступление, ответственность, Томская губерния, police, police officers, crime, responsibility, Tomsk provinceAuthors
Name | Organization | |
Khramtsov Aleksandr B. | Tyumen State Architectural University | khramtsov_ab@bk.ru |
References

Attraction of ranks of police of the Tomsk province for illegal actions to responsibility in 1914-1916 | Tomsk State University Journal of History. 2015. № 2 (34).