Негласная работа

Новые слова: den – притон; tramp – бродяга; insult – оскорблять; descendant – потомок.

Undercover functioning of an operative is one of the most interesting aspects of crime detection. In English an operative may be called a detective, a plain-clothes man, a sleuth, a CID man. In his undercover work an operative uses special means, methods and forms of fighting crime to prevent crimes, solve them. He lays an ambush and conducts surveillance, penetrates the underworld, uses disguises of various sorts to ferret out serious crimes and frustrate the efforts of professional criminals. He comes to know personally the offenders of the specific criminal specialties, their distinctive marks, their friends, relatives and close associates. He becomes familiar with salient features of criminal's modus operandi. An operative works in close cooperation with the informants. He chooses, cultivates and uses their confidential information in crime control. An operative must be a good judge of a human nature, he must possess common sense and decision-making judgement as well as investigative aptitudes and sleuthing powers. He must perform well under operational conditions. Undercover work is of great importance for the increase of crime solution rate.

An example of successful crime detection mostly thanks to undercover operations was set by one of the outstanding 19th century detectives of Russia – Ivan Putilin (1830 - 1893). Putilin may be rightfully called Russia's Sherlock Holmes. His name was very popular in pre-revolutionary Russia and was forgotten in Soviet years.

Putilin began his nearly forty year long police career from the position of junior police officer at a market. Then he rapidly rose through ranks to become in 1866 St. Petersburg’s criminal investigation police chief. The list of crimes he solved includes fraud, forgery, arson, murder and many others. Huge sums of money were returned to the treasury and individuals. St. Petersburg, a city that was famous for its underworld, was cleaned up. He not only solved crimes – he prevented them. Putilin's success was due to careful study of the criminal world that greatly developed his detective abilities. Not infrequently the police officer visited cheap inns and dens of thieves, disguised as a common laborer or a tramp, observing life there, listening to conversations, learning criminal slang and often making friends with suspicious characters. Putilin was often in physical danger, but his strength and quick decision-making judgement always saved him in the end. In dealing with the most hardened criminals and killers, Putilin interrogated them in his office eye to eye. And there was not a single instance when the accused would physically assault or even insult him. His tactic was to talk to them as if they were friends but not evil-doers, unfortunate men worthy of sympathy. Nearly always it worked well and criminals confessed their guilt. Occasionally, Putilin would even seek the advice of other criminals in his detective activity.

Though Putilin's methods may seem doubtful in moral and legal terms, the results of his activities were invariably brilliant: he with his subordinates managed to solve the most difficult criminal cases.

I. Putilin retired in 1889 due to illness and in four years he died. In spite of his dangerous handling the law in his investigations, Putilin remained absolutely honest and uncorrupted. The police chief who investigated cases involving millions of rubles left his descendants only his memoirs where he published a chronicle of crime in Russia during his years in office.

Putilin's memoirs and detective stories are an important source on the social history of Russia. They contain a lot of observations and reasoning which are especially interesting nowadays in the light of correlation between covert functions of detectives and the necessity of observing the principle of legality.

(From Moscow News № 34, 2000).

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