Prison people. Investigator

One of the most important people in the life of every prisoner is the investigator. The person on whom, taking into account the realities of our legal proceedings, your fate depends. “To see” or “not to see” the signs of a crime, to appoint a defendant or a witness, to arrest or leave under house arrest, and even to allow a meeting with relatives - all this and much more is in the hands, as a rule, of a very young (under 30 years old) yesterday's law school graduate.

By law, the investigator is independent. Almost like a judge. In fact, he is just a cog in the “law enforcement vertical”. A petty bureaucrat, often disenfranchised on substantive matters of his work.

Four years, with a short break, I communicated with these people. Actually, no one required them to pretend that they were investigating something, but the procedure obliged us to stay in the same office for many hundreds and thousands of hours. It was impossible to completely avoid any communication, and there was no such goal. Among the investigators there were different people - indifferent and burdened by their role, striving to understand something and simply "serving a number".

I do not wish harm to any of them, so my story is based on the stories of those of them who have already left the system.

Yuri Ivanovich * * Names and details of events have been changed. - a rare character in "my" investigative team, selected mainly from "national personnel". With people like him, the bosses always have problems - independent, as far as possible within the system. Self-esteem is supported by the awareness of professional and everyday self-sufficiency. A good education, an apartment inherited from his parents, a lively mind sometimes allow him to have his own opinion about the “events” in which he is involved in parallel with “my” business.

This very opinion he shares with me from time to time.

Today, Yuri Ivanovich can hardly restrain his emotions: “Can you imagine, Mikhail Borisovich, yesterday there was a raid against poaching deforestation.”

I do present a problem. The forest is cut barbarously, closer to cities and roads, the best trees are felled anyhow, and, of course, without any permits, for which you have to pay to the budget. "Chopped" - then smuggled abroad. This is how almost the entire local “elite” “lives”.

„

Either accept and enjoy the benefits, feeling like shit, or fight, realizing that you will be covered with shit from head to toe

”

“We were called for a briefing,” he continues, “they showed on the map where to “not climb”, where the police stations and other authorities were, assigned areas of responsibility, and we went. We arrive - they saw, they don’t even pay attention to us, there are no licenses, they fell the forest at random. We hold up, we seal the equipment. The brigadier only chuckles - "I, they say, have already called the right person." Half an hour later, we got a call: let people go, remove the seals, break the protocols. The poachers are laughing, we are leaving like spat upon. It turns out that the governor “put on” this, but he didn’t even indicate it on the briefing map. Moreover, upon arrival, they made a scandal for us, they promised to deprive us of the bonus. How is that possible? Cedar, after all, there is so little of it left ... "

In the voice of the investigator - sincere resentment and indignation. What pleases me is that he seems to be worried not because of the risk of being left without a bonus. The endured humiliation, the sincere feelings of the inhabitant of those places for the nature of their land broke the armor of the habit of corrupt lawlessness.

We discuss the causes of what is happening, possible options for action. I see that he has already thought it all over more than once, now it just spilled out. I do not rule it out - it is waiting for me to find some unexpected solution.

Unfortunately, I don't have such solutions. Either put up with it and enjoy the benefits, feeling like shit, or fight, realizing that you will be covered with shit from head to toe.

These are the rules of the system.

There is a third way out. Yuri Ivanovich took advantage of him - he filed a letter of resignation. Is this the only way out? Another thing is also important: this is how “negative selection” takes place. The worst gradually remain in the system: someone lacks the intelligence to understand, someone lacks the conscience to understand, at least to refuse complicity.

Fools or scoundrels are good material for the construction of the state machine.

But this is our state.

* Continuation. For the beginning, see The New Times Nos. 27 , 29 , 35 , 38 , 42 , 2011.