Public and Applied Foundations of Russian Citizens’ Participation in Public Law Enforcement Associations

The events that prompted changes in federal legislation regulating public relations during mobilization or wartime have also highlighted the need to reassess the foundations of citizen’s law enforcement activities as part of the citizen patrol (people’s druzhina). In the Russian Federation, the key legal framework in this area is Federal Law No. 44-FZ of April 2, 2014 «On the Participation of Citizens in the Protection of Public Order». To improve the effectiveness of citizen patrols, empirical research methods were used to study actual practices. The paper presents the results of surveys involving 818 citizens and 545 patrol members. The sociological survey aimed to gather data on how the public is informed about the activities of citizen patrols. Therefore, questionnaires and interviews were primarily conducted not in major cities but in Russian regions geographically distant from the central areas. The survey was conducted in the Altai Territory, Arkhangelsk, Kostroma, Lipetsk, Tambov, Ryazan, Samara regions, the Republic of Karelia, and the Udmurt Republic. The research yielded new ideas for improving the functioning of citizen patrols.