"Modernization of Ministry of Interior of Russia as one of components of reforming system as a whole"

Here is another issue of the program "Conversation with the Minister" at the radio station "Militia Wave": 

MW. Today, we continue our weekly dialogue with the RF Minister of Interior Rashid Nurgaliev where the Head of the Ministry of Interior of Russia tells about the most urgent aspects of the departmental activity which may interest our listeners.

- Rashid Gumarovich, our program continues receiving letters from our radio listeners. A considerable part of the citizens' messages concern the law enforcement bodies' reforming. Today, I suggest we discuss a topic closely related to the restructuring of the Ministry, the authority modernization. This is even more relevant now that you mentioned repeatedly before that the technical re-equipment of law enforcement bodies was one of major priorities for the management of the authority.

Minister. You are right, the subject is of high importance. We should not neglect that the country leaders have defined the issue of modernization of Ministries and departments as a priority matter. This aspect is highly relevant both for the country as a whole, and in particular for the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation.

MW. The first question is this regard is: "What measures are taken by the Ministry of Interior of Russia in this respect?"

Minister. The technical re-equipment of law enforcement bodies has been carried out according to a plan for years. State-of-the-art samples of special equipment and safety systems are regularly developed for needs of our units and added to our armory in the interest of our citizens. It shall be emphasized that the equipment we buy is basically manufactured by Russian enterprises and are meant directly for militia units taking into account the particularities of the service and challenges we meet.

Once again I will emphasize that this large scale work is carried out to ensure more efficient protection of rights and freedoms of citizens. It is a key aspect of the modernization for the Ministry of Interior which is underway Russia. For example, together with regional and municipal authorities we have been developing the hardware and software complexe "Safe city". As a matter of fact, it represents an utterly new approach to the safety notion as a whole. Such complexes are operating already in 59 constituents of the Russian Federation.

MW. Rashid Gumarovich, has the financial and economic crisis taken its toll on the modernization process?

Minister. Safety is not a sphere where one should spare one's expenses, especially, when the life, health and protection of the citizens' rights are in question. Therefore, the whole scope of work planned for 2009 in terms of the technical re-equipment of law enforcement bodies and the development of modern safety maintenance systems was fully accomplished.

Only within the frameworks of the hardware and software complex "Safe city" project 7,300 emergency communication points "citizen-militia" and almost 199,000 video surveillance cameras were mounted in streets of cities and settlements. This means that even in the difficult year of financial crisis we practically implemented all technical solutions we had undertaken.

MW. And how efficient are the measures you have taken?

Minister. This, in my opinion, is where statistical data are most convincing. In several recent years we can observe a steady decreasing trend for criminality in all basic rates.

Thanks to the technical re-equipment, the number of crimes committed in streets and in public places has decreased by 6,4%. At first sight, this is a minor decrease. However when taken nationally this means thousands of our citizens who avoided falling victims to criminal encroachments thanks to the measures taken. Today, we would not bend the truth saying our streets have become safer.

Among other factors, this result is due to the introduction of advanced information technologies in the daily activity of law enforcement bodies and the optimization of the militia squad management system. This system has yielded us over 19,000 crimes, Besides, more than one million administrative offences were revealed.

MW. You mentioned a squad management system. Could you particularize it a bit?

Minister. The primary goal of our activity is to ensure clear and well-organized interaction of patrol and inspection squads of militia, the road patrol and traffic safety service, the private security service involved in service directly in streets of cities and settlements.

Earlier all of them were managed from their respective alert departments. Each squad had a route and a zone of responsibility. Today, now that the complex "Safe city" is in action, there is no longer a necessity in complete patrol combing of the territory, which in its turn the routes were revised, too. Accordingly, the approaches to the disposition of groups have changed to implement a uniform disposition system.

Our main goal is to react as soon as possible to calls, messages and complaints of our citizens professionally and competently. And certainly, we are to meet the challenge of disclosing crimes quickly, efficiently and without delay.

MW. How is this done in practice?

Minister. The squad management center is a new alert department equipped with new technologies and an interactive card for the respective district where the location of each our patrol car, the patrol and inspection crew, the traffic safety crew or the private security service crew is shown in the real time mode. The duty officer in the alert department manages the whole thing. As soon as an incident is reported, the duty officer sends the nearest squad to the scene. Thus we reduce the time of reaction which is a crucial factor for us. Everyone should know that getting into a difficult life situation one can hope, the militia will react efficiently and quickly. Simultaneously, a special incident registration card is created which contains all information about the citizen's message and supplemented with new data online. This means that everything is registered, archived, preserved by electronic means.

Besides, each motor vehicle is equipped with both a video camera and a portable PC which enables employees to take advantage of both regional and federal databases without leaving their cars. This drastically reduces time for receiving true information about detention of an individual person, about any incidents in this district.

In his turn, the duty officer can at any moment call the image from the video cameras mounted in the car on his display at the Management Center and thus personally take part in the field work. This once again proves that we can not only manage this process but also see how professionally our employees perform their field work.

Besides, it shall be mentioned that the modern technologies, the new equipment and safety systems we have introduced demanded approaches to training of employees be reconsidered. The militia officer of the 21^st century should be aware and ready and able to professionally take advantage of all new technologies and all novelties which are added to the law enforcement bodies' armory today.

MW. Rashid Gumarovich, our time is running out unfortunately, with so many questions remaining about the creation of a uniform IT system, the counteraction to cyber crimes, to the Ministry of Interior's participation the development of an electronic government, and many other things related to the modernization...

Minister. I think that we are short of time indeed to discourse more about so many projects related to the modernization of law enforcement bodies. Certainly, it is a very interesting topic. In the near future, we can talk about cyber crimes, the cyber terrorism, the crimes involving the hi-tech sphere. Here we also have many serious practices and time and technologies which offer us a chance to perform our mission of protecting the rights and freedoms of our citizens more efficiently, more objectively.

MW. Thank you, Rashid Gumarovich. See you next week.

Radio broadcasting company "Militia wave"

Program "Conversation with the Minister",

www.mvd.ru

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