Investigators: "General dactyloscopy" hampers to crack crimes

Policemen in the regions complain that their participation in the general dactyloscopy prevents them from performing their duty. Towards the end of January, Minsk Region’s Police Department summed up the results of operation of the region’s police stations. The Borisov District Police Department was awarded the prize for “high performance parameters”. At the same time, statistics display that 2780 felony offences were registered in Borisov in 2008. Only 1254 out of them were cracked. Therefore, the performance ration of the best police department in the Minsk region amounted to 43.5 percent.


The European Radio for Belarus approached Aliaksandr Shunkevich, the head of the press service of the Minsk Region’s Police Department, to find out what performance parameters were reported by other district police departments in the region.


“One should understand that this depends on the size of the city and, correspondingly, the size of the police department. Cities are divided into three categories: first, second and the third. That’s why it is not ethical to compare them. There are towns where just 1 or 2 crimes are committed. In Borisov, 19-20 crimes are reported daily. It is hard to compare. In terms of the number of crimes, Borisov is probably taking the lead. But they are also on top in the region in terms of the resolution of crimes”, Shunkevich said.


But Col. Yury Maroz, the Chief of the Borisov District Police Department, admitted candidly that he has been in this position not for a very long period of time. He says he has simply had little time to improve the image of the local police. Moreover, public trust indicators actually depend on the pollsters, not on the actual level of trust.


“A poll can be conducted according to two options. Firstly, I can conduct it in such a way that there will not be even 20 percent. But I can also conduct in such a away that I can obtain 60, 70 or 80 percent, depending on supervisors”.
He is also skeptical about the crime solution performance by his department. “We should work more. We pick what is lying on the surface. Practically, we pick some elements but we don’t work deeply. I think to describe it a good performance in cracking the crimes, we should obtain more than 50 percent”, Maroz says.


The reason is that people are often distracted from their duties to carry out secondary tasks, e.g. to implement the dactyloscopy of the population. “Preventive actions also distract the police personnel. Only the criminal police work in full swing, but the task is to have everyone work”, says the Colonel.


According to the latest results of the official monitoring, around 30 percent of the local population trust the police in Borisov. The previous result hovered around 40 percent. Yury Maroz does not know why the prize was given to his department.


By the way, several weeks ago, Yury Snyazhko, the chief of the Baranavichy District Police Department, filed a request to be transferred to another location, because only 25.3 percent of the local residents trusted the police in Baranavichy. It was the lowest performance indicator in the Brest region.