The new law "On the Police", adopted in February 2011, provides for the remuneration of citizens for helping the police in solving crimes. Until now, this "service" was just words, since no by-law was adopted. Finally, in August 2012, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs posted the long-awaited draft order on its website.
According to the project proposed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the police will pay for the assistance of citizens in solving grave, especially grave crimes, or those that have received a great public response. The "bonus" can be paid to persons who have assisted the investigation, provided reliable information that contributed to the disclosure of the case or the detention of criminals.
It should be noted right away that the payment will not be made if the assistance was not significant enough to solve the case - who and by what criteria will determine this importance is not specified. If several people helped to solve the crime, the assigned amount will be distributed differentially, that is, the role of each volunteer in the capture and the significance of the information provided will be taken into account.
Not all citizens will be able to receive remuneration - the order will not apply to employees of law enforcement agencies, controlling organizations (federal service for the execution of punishments) and their relatives.
The appointment of the award is entrusted to the heads of the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the regional, interregional and district levels, the Minister of Internal Affairs and his deputies. The highest amount of remuneration depends on the position: regional leaders can announce a bonus of 500 thousand rubles, deputy. minister - up to three million, minister - over three million.
The payment of bonuses will be made at the expense of federal funds, in the 2012 budget, as well as for the planning period of 2013 and 2014, 285 million rubles were provided for these purposes annually.
Until now, the institution of awarding a prize for assistance in solving crimes did not exist in Russia, while in many Western countries this is a common practice. The initiative to pay remuneration had arisen earlier, but inevitably faced skepticism from human rights defenders. In their opinion, the absence of a transparent scheme for paying money will not allow tracking who will be paid the amounts, which will cause a lot of abuse.
