Legislative Regulation of the Activities of Intelligence-Gathering Units of the Penal System in Ensuring the Execution of Punishment

Abstract

Introduction: the article analyzes legislative norms regulating the activities of operational units of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. Aim: by analyzing the norms of the current intelligence-gathering, penal enforcement and criminal-procedural legislation, to put forward proposals for introducing amendments to certain norms so as to improve the effectiveness of legal regulation of the activities of operational units of the penal system. Methods: comparative legal method, empirical methods of description and interpretation, theoretical methods of formal and dialectical logic. Private scientific methods: legal-dogmatic method and the method of interpretation of legal norms. Results: having analyzed certain norms of the current intelligence-gathering, penal enforcement and criminal-procedural legislation, we see that the norms under consideration are in a certain contradiction, and there are also gaps in the legislative regulation of the activities of operational units of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. Conclusions: we argue that structural operational units of the territorial and central management bodies of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia can conduct intelligence-gathering activities outside the territory of correctional institutions, including cases when such activities are conducted according to regulations set out as the tasks of intelligence-gathering activities in institutions executing sentences in the form of imprisonment. We also argue that operational units of the territorial bodies of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia can conduct intelligence-gathering activities aimed at establishing the location of convicts, those who have escaped from correctional institutions, their detention and delivery to the investigator (inquirer) for conducting investigative actions. We note legal gaps in the legislative regulation of these measures and propose amendments to legislative acts aimed at improving the effectiveness of law enforcement practice.

Keywords

• federal penitentiary service
• operational units
• intelligence-gathering activities