Despite the Rise of Russian Democracy, the Police Remain Distant and Feared : Law enforcement: Voices of liberalization are now heard, but the old-line cops await the return of brass-knuckle days. A visit to a dungeon.

The police state is alive and well in Russia despite the democratic revolution and the outlawing of the Communist Party.

I discovered this earlier this year, when I and three other U.S. law-enforcement experts met with Russian police officials to discuss the democratization of Russian policing. We sat in the Moscow City Council chambers across from veterans of the dreaded Ministry of the Interior, KGB and the Moscow militia. They were more interested in obtaining aid and the latest police technology than in reversing the past horrors imposed on the Russian people in the name of law enforcement.

The meeting was co-sponsored by the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative group in Washington, and Arkady Murashev, the new police chief of Moscow. Murashev, a 34-year-old chemist with no previous police experience, opened the conference with a candid acknowledgment of past police oppression and the need for change. Many officials present did not hesitate to contradict Murashev’s assertions that the police function needed to be decentralized, clear laws enacted and a proper court system established.

The conference was held on the first anniversary of Boris N. Yeltsin’s triumph over the Communist coup leaders. Outside the chambers, people commemorated that defense of freedom; inside, the Russian cops consistently opposed our contention that police in a democracy are subservient to the people. Moscow’s police chief was pleased by our suggestions, but his superiors from the Ministry of Interior seemed amused at our naivete.

It is hard for Americans to imagine the workings of justice in Russia. Crimes are not clearly defined; under communism, some laws were secret. Crime was what the government or police said it was when you were arrested, and people taken into custody had none of the rights U.S. citizens take for granted.

The efficiency of law enforcement under communist management was probably overrated. There was certainly a great deal of corruption and more crime than the government ever admitted. Yet, most Russians feel crime is out of hand and the police are not coping.

Our Russian counterparts described some of their problems. There are shoot-outs among racketeers. Wholesale business fraud and corruption are rampant. Cops cannot survive on their salaries. Prostitution flourishes under official protection, and organized criminals are amassing fortunes in hard currencies. The public has little sympathy for small-business profiteers who are victimized by robbers, extortion racketeers or corrupt officials and thus does not cooperate with police efforts to curb these crimes. Citizens are angry when they see racketeers driving expensive foreign cars, while working people have a hard time providing food and shelter for their families.

The Russian people doubt that the antiquated law-enforcement system, which relied on brutality and terror, is up to coping with this bewildering array of new problems. Cursory inspection convinced me they are right.

The police do what they want. The militia wear military uniforms and act more like occupying troops than peace officers. Detectives who investigate murders, robberies and other serious crimes are even more removed from the public. They work for the national government in the Ministry of the Interior.

We visited a local police station where the commander explained what happens when a citizen complains that someone has stolen his property or assaulted him. The suspect is brought in. If there is doubt about identity, a line-up is held, Russian-style. The prisoner is made to stand with his hands spread against the wall, while the accuser watches from 15 yards away in a dark hallway.

When I explained that, in the United States, the courts require four or more people to be in a line-up to protect the innocent from being misidentified and that the victim is only a few feet away behind a one-way glass mirror, the commander laughed. He reassured us, however, that they are only allowed to hold a suspect for three days, or until the prosecutor decides the person should go to jail. He showed us three small cells with hard wooden benches and no mattresses or toilets.

Later, we visited Butyrski Jail, where a prisoner might be sent after such an investigation at the police station. Built in 1741 for 1,800 prisoners, the word dungeon does not adequately describe it. The jail has 4,200 inmates today.

The sector we visited was dark. The cell doors were windowless. The stench made us gag.

The warden told us there are four or five inmates in each cell. Looking through a peephole in the door, we saw five men squeezed into a space 6-feet-by-12 feet. A small barred window to the courtyard was too high for anyone to look out. The men sat in their narrow bunks; a filthy toilet and sink, along with the five bunks, left only a few feet of walking space.

I asked the warden how often the men are allowed out of the cell. “No more than an hour a day,” he assured us. I asked him if the prisoners were awaiting trial or had already been sentenced, which I later realized was a poor question, because there is not a normal trial in the American sense. The warden shrugged and said it depended on the crime. Some serious crimes require long investigations. “How long on average?” It was impossible to say, he replied, but one man had been in Butyrski Jail for 40 years.

There are no procedures for citizens to complain about the police. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine anyone being foolhardy enough to risk police displeasure under a system where cops can cause a person to vanish into a dungeon cell. And judging from the overcrowding of the jails, the draconian punishments have not deterred crime under either communism or democracy.

At the moment, there is economic, social and moral chaos in Russia. Many citizens are dissatisfied with the new democracy; some even demonstrated for the return of communism. As in any nation, the police are caught in the middle when there is social instability. But the situation is worse in Russia, because many officers and their superiors seem to be silently waiting for a return to the old ways. During our tours, I did not see any pictures of Yeltsin displayed on the walls of police buildings, rather the stern face of Vladimir I. Lenin looked down at us in several offices. Red stars are still on top of buildings overlooking the city. All this is very strange in a land that recently renounced the horrors of communism.

Of course, even with the best intentions of government, historical fear of the police is a major obstacle to installing democratic traditions of law and justice. There is, however, little evidence that the Russian government wants to establish public trust and cooperation with the police. The militiamen are everywhere in twos or threes, but talk only to each other. In police headquarters we saw the equivalent of our 911 systems. Nine policewomen sat at 1930s-style switchboards capable of handling only a few calls. In 15 years they hope to have computerized dispatching.

Moscow is a city of 9 million, yet half the women at the antiquated switchboards were idle. Russians do not call their police.

Republics of the former Soviet Union are eager for Western aid, and the West should support the embattled pro-democracy politicians. But any assistance must be accompanied by guarantees that the Soviet police state be dismantled and replaced by a system of law and justice. After centuries of brutal repression, the Russian people have an opportunity to gain basic human rights for the first time in their history. It would be tragic if Western aid was used to abort the birth of freedom.