Both now and in the post-war period, the fight against crime is and will be the main task of the police. Has her job changed recently? How professional are police officers?
Factors affecting the level of crime in Ukraine were considered in previous article. Now let’s analyze how the work of the police has changed and how professionally it works. Due respect must be given to the police who are now heavily overworked working under martial law. They are involved in performing tasks related to territorial defense, ensuring and implementing measures of the legal regime of martial law (in particular, documenting war crimes), countering the activities of sabotage and intelligence groups, serving at checkpoints, participating in evacuation measures and measures to clear demined territories, issuing summonses . Law enforcement officers help the population during shelling, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. These factors have a significant impact on the effectiveness of their performance of their primary duties in the fight against crime.
The police leadership regularly reports on the success of its work, despite the military operations in Ukraine. For example, according to by the report of the Kharkiv District Police Department No. 1 of the GUNP in the Kharkiv region on the results of work during 2023 “in general, the effectiveness of solving almost all types of criminal offenses increased compared to 2022, 2,030 serious and especially serious crimes were solved (+4%), 32 crimes committed with the use of firearms (+17%), 17 murders (+95%) , 1,239 thefts (+12%), including 49 home thefts (remained at the same level), 25 robberies (+12%), 6 acts of destruction or damage to property, including 8 committed by arson (+61%) , 16 traffic accidents (+18%), including 1 with death (remained at the same level), 10 illegal possession of vehicles (+27%), including 5 cars (+15%)”.
The statistics are impressive, but at the same time, in any report or report, the management does not traditionally voice the problems faced by the police. Most likely, this happens because the problematic issues are precisely his shortcomings, which are not customary to talk about openly. In addition, the official websites and social networks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and regional police departments do not publish information about facts that testify to the disclosure of high-profile crimes. Her absence is replaced by videos about solving minor crimes or noble acts of law enforcement officers – removing cats from trees, moving grandmothers across the road, helping a man who had an epileptic attack. Activities that are not included in the functional duties of the police are also demonstrated. A vivid example of this can be the information that recently spread through the media and social networks about how policemen in Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and other cities brought and transferred the Holy Flame from Jerusalem to the temples during Easter.
All these actions of the law enforcement officers look very cute and continue the tradition of showing “good cops” with their selfies, which were too popular at the beginning of the reform period. However, if you look objectively at what is actually happening, you can see that there is no one to solve high-profile crimes with such a large army of policemen due to the low level of their training. This is evidenced by other numerous cases, among which there is a brazen and high-profile crime that was actively discussed in society and on all TV channels. On the night of April 20, 2024, in the Gaysyn district of the Vinnytsia region, police officers on patrol stopped a car with two servicemen in its cabin for violating traffic rules. As a result, they shot a police outfit and fled from the scene of the crime, while one policeman was killed.
IA “FACT” turned to the former head of one of the regional offices of the national police, a veteran of internal affairs bodies, with a request to comment on this situation and assess the level of training of police officers.
“In this case, I have a question that was not raised in the comments of the police leadership regarding this event: “How could it happen that the criminals were able to shoot the police outfit and escape from the scene of the crime?” Commenting on these events, the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko emphasized that it is worth once again reviewing the instructions for police response in such cases. In this regard, I would like to note that there is no need to revise the instructions and regulatory framework governing police activities, they must be followed. The instructions specify a clear algorithm of police actions in similar situations, only one thing remains – to study and monitor its implementation.
Thus, the instructions say: “During the duty in the dark hours of the day, the police team should be reinforced by an additional employee.” Accordingly, there should have been at least 3 police officers in the crew. Especially since they were on duty at night, on the territory of the settlement during the curfew. In this case, another question arises: “Which of the police chiefs instructed the personnel and made the decision to send a crew consisting of two policemen to the night shift?”.
Taking into account the specifics of the service, police officers must be properly equipped – with a body armor of the appropriate class, a protective helmet, a firearm, as well as an automatic weapon, means of active defense – a rubber baton, canisters with tear gas and handcuffs. Were the slain policemen in full possession of weapons, personal protective equipment and special equipment, and how were they used? How were the personal safety requirements of the police officers during the stop and inspection of the offending car fulfilled? There are more questions than answers.
In addition, when stopping a car for violating traffic rules, a police officer must park his official car behind the violator’s car. In this case, the offender will be in front of him, not behind him or to the side. At the same time, there must be a video recorder on the windshield of the patrol car, which captures the entire panorama of events, and this video recording is the evidence base of the police officer. When checking documents and the interior, another police officer must be outside the car in a safe place and monitor the actions of his partner, thus keeping him safe. In the dark time of day, being behind the dimensions of the car, the offending driver does not see it, because he is in the light of the headlights of the patrol car.
Apparently, this was not done. In addition, in violation of all norms and rules, the patrol car was located nearby on the roadway, thus the criminals had the opportunity to look around and see the composition of the crew, as well as its location on the spot. So, in this case, the police officers on patrol did not have the opportunity to protect themselves by choosing the wrong location of the car on the road.
Also, when checking the documents of traffic violators, the police made a number of gross mistakes:
- Demanding the driver to provide documents for the car, the policeman for some reason did not check the driver’s license, although his conversation should always begin with an introduction and checking of identity documents. In this case, this is a driver’s license.
- For unknown reasons, the policeman spent most of the time talking to the passenger who got out of the car, and it was he who offered to open the car for inspection. As you know, the driver is always responsible for the transported cargo.
- The video from the policeman’s body camera shows how, in the process of communicating with the passenger, one patrolman temporarily turns his back to him, while the other at this time does not have the opportunity to protect him.
- The video recording from the body camera confirms the fact that the inspection and inspection of the car made the passenger nervous (he avoided answering a direct question, twisted the conversation and transferred it to another topic, did not show the contents of the box in the car to the patrol officer for a long time). All this should have alerted the police, if they already offered the passenger to open the box and show its contents, so the police had reason to believe that there might be weapons or ammunition in the car.
In this situation, there is also a clear algorithm of actions, according to which in such cases both police officers must be on the street, they must demand that all passengers get out of the car, they must always be ready to respond adequately to any escalation of the situation . In this case, all this was not taken into account, the attack on the patrol became a complete surprise, which led to the tragedy.
What is surprising in this situation is that the question: “Is it planned to strengthen the checkpoints with additional reserves?” Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko answered: “Regarding the work of checkpoints, they work effectively, at least where the police, National Guard, Armed Forces of Ukraine, and territorial defense work. And strengthening the checkpoints, in my opinion, “is not worth it today.” In this case, the question arises: “If the checkpoints are working effectively, how did a car with military personnel and ammunition get to Vinnytsia, passing more than one checkpoint?”.
You and I have considered only one case and I have commented on the circumstances that caused only one tragedy. If you look at it, the life of the detained offender, who was in the police car, was also in danger. Will someone be able to take responsibility and conduct an independent investigation of all the circumstances, where all the shortcomings and violations in the work of the police that led to the death of the employee will be announced? I doubt it!
The patrol police is a new, young unit that was created according to foreign standards, with new individuals, a new attitude to people and work. It is worth mentioning the first dead patrol policemen in Dnipro in September 2016, a patrol policeman in Kharkiv who died in the building of the city executive committee and many other cases. The price of each of them is a human life. And so far there are no those who will answer for all this…”.
This case was asked to be analyzed in detail by an experienced law enforcement officer in order not only to show the low level of training of modern police officers and the unprofessionalism of their leaders, but also to obtain useful information for them in the future. By the way, if there was a mentoring school that existed at one time in the police, young workers would be able to avoid many mistakes in their work.
One of the main indicators of the work of the police is the level of trust in it by the population. Is it tall now? With the beginning of the reform, the population had high hopes for the police officers of the new generation, so the level of trust in them increased significantly. However, over time, judging by people’s feedback in public places and social networks, trust in law enforcement remained at a low level, despite attempts at pre-war reform. Ukrainians see that only the facade and the name changed during the reform process, and everything else in the work of the police not only did not improve, but also worsened. This is evidenced by numerous videos on social networks, which demonstrate the incompetence of police officers or their inaction. For example, a video was published the other day, which caused a general outcry. On it, a police officer from Odesa was outraged that she was assigned to guard public order near the church during Easter.
“At *** that church needs to be guarded, there are 30 people there.” Well, he will fly there, so what? It’s OK! It’s not minus 100 people, it’s just minus 30.” – she complained on the video.
Can such acts of police officers cause them to be trusted and respected by the population? Unlikely.
Despite the optimistic statistics published by the police leadership, they still have not learned how to effectively fight crime, including organized crime. It was recently made public “Global Index of Organized Crime”, in which it was determined that Europe is the second safest continent in terms of the threat of organized crime, but some European countries are particularly distinguished by the presence and brutality of powerful OZU (armed criminal groups, – order.).
Studies in the “Global Index of Organized Crime” indicate that Ukraine ranks third in the “mafia rating”:
- Turkey
- Russia
- Ukraine
- Italy
- Serbia
- Montenegro
- Spain
- Belarus
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- France
Therefore, based on this rating and other foreign studies indicated in previous publication, the criminogenic situation in our country looks extremely deplorable. At the same time, organized crime has long been integrated into the European criminal world, which is not limited to our country. Currently, there are more than 5,000 transnational criminal groups, at least 80% of which are permanent, they have connections with law enforcement and other authorities.
What is needed for effective police work?
The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs sought to demonstrate to the population the efficiency and incorruptibility of the new patrol policemen, without actually making any changes in all other units: criminal, operational, investigative. As a result, the burden on them only increased, which affected the quality of crime detection, collection and pre-trial investigation of materials. The problem with managers is that they always choose the tactics of situational hype, and not a long-term well-thought-out strategy. Former Minister of Internal Affairs Avakov and top managers from Georgia destroyed the core of experienced professionals with their unprofessional actions and biased re-certification with the involvement of random people in the form of public activists. Currently, these reformers are no longer in charge of law enforcement, but the consequences of their innovations still affect the work of the entire system.
In addition, a great deal of damage was done to agency work, there is no prevention of precinct crimes, which the population almost does not see, random people are hired without effective professional selection, and there is a high turnover of personnel. In order to become, for example, a professional operative, an employee must work in the system for at least 10 years (provided that he was trained by experienced colleagues and he wanted to learn). Today’s police officers, due to their inexperience and unwillingness to work, are mostly engaged only in recording crimes, and not in their disclosure and investigation.
Large-scale changes in the country directly depend on the results of military operations, but the problem of crime will always occupy one of the key places. Currently, the mechanism of the law enforcement system is not only unbalanced, it has been destroyed, so it needs to be restored. It should also be taken into account that law enforcement officers cannot effectively fight crime also because some of them have resigned, some have died, others cannot work after being wounded, remained in the occupied territories, and some simply fled at the beginning of the war.
Without systemic changes in the entire state apparatus, it is pointless to rebuild only the law enforcement system. Reforming the police must be carried out in a complex with all spheres of state administration, while developing an effective strategy, rather than sectoral tactics. At the same time, not only law enforcement officers, but also the population should participate in maintaining law and order. It is extremely important to return professionals to the police, to create effective analytical units, to carry out crime prevention, to restore an effective agency apparatus, to constantly train and instruct personnel, to provide them with decent motivation – material and social. Only under such conditions will the police be effective, and our society will live in a safe environment.
Oksana Ishchenko
