Physical training of federal penitentiary service staff at stage of reforming

Фотографии: 

ˑ: 

PhD, Associate Professor V.V. Vol'skiy1
PhD, Associate Professor K.P. Bakeshin1
PhD A.E. Baturin2
1Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, St. Petersburg
2St. Petersburg institute of advanced training of employees of Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, St. Petersburg

Keywords: Penitentiary Service System reform, physical training, physical fitness, professional competency, lawful use of physical force, combat wrestling actions.

Background. The relevant study reports for the recent few years that provide background information on the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation progress and modern situation have repeatedly underlined the growing severity of the crime statistics within the Service system, i.e. the growing proportion of the inmates convicted for serious and gravest crimes and reported as developed habitual criminal motivations. The percentage of inmates convicted for serious and gravest crimes, repeated criminals and offenders registered with different crime prevention registers is reported to grow from 11.6% to 12.4% of the total special contingent. In the year of 2015, the formally registered cases of aggression towards the Penitentiary Service (PS) officers on duty were reported to grow by 6.5% (from 108 to 115 cases), with 40 officers being reportedly injured in the accidents [5].

These negative trends in the system have resulted in the safety requirements of the Service being made more stringent in application to safety of the service personnel engaged in the Penitentiary Service System operations. Safety, as far as the penitentiary service officers’ responsibilities are concerned, is interpreted as a system of relationships and legal provisions that regulate every interaction within the professional scopes of responsibilities so as to ensure the life, health and labour of the PS officers, inmates and other personnel legally engaged in the Penitentiary Service System operations is duly protected.

In view of the fact that professional responsibilities of the PS officers imply them being always in close contact with the suspects, accused and convicts who may be inclined to a criminal aggression often complicated by at least the unwillingness to obey the lawful demands of the officers and at most by physical aggression including armed assaults – that may be unpredictable, sudden and highly dangerous – a top priority by the modern PS safety improvement policies is given to the tactical and operational fitness excelling trainings.

This domain of the staff training process is based on the methods, techniques and approaches designed to develop good practical skills with due integration of the theoretical legal knowledge and standard special training methods to make the PS staff officers highly fit for efficient actions in complicated service/ combat situations under hard direct/ indirect mental and physical pressures including hard combat situations. A PS officer must be highly fit for possible fight/ wrestling contacts to be able to efficiently counter assaults by individual and collective actions in dynamically changing challenging situations with individual physical, mental and physiological resources being mobilized to the maximum possible extent [2].

In the Penitentiary Service Development Concept for the period up to 2020 implementation process, the Service faces the need of due theoretical grounds and practical methods to design and manage a modern PS personnel physical and mental training system to make the officers highly fit for combat counteractions to offenders [4].

Study results and discussion. In the context of the ongoing reforms in the national Penitentiary Service System, due emphasis in the academic education process will be made on improvements of the education methods and tools to make the young service personnel highly fit for the real challenging service conditions being capable of taking right decisions in a wide variety of service situations including emergency ones.

As required by the academic curricula, the trainees were subject to entry tests under the study to rate their theoretical knowledge obtained at the primary education stage and their actual physical fitness as a result of the standard Combat Wrestling Techniques training course. Our analysis of the entry test data showed their theoretical knowledge base within the scope of their professional responsibilities being extremely poor (see Table 1 hereunder).

Table 1. Trainees’ theoretical knowledge entry test scores (n=89)

Group

 

n

Marks

Average mark

5

4

3

2

Junior commanders: 04.02 to 07.03. 2014

1

20

-

1

8

11

2,5

Junior commanders: 11.03 to 10.04. 2014

2

21

-

-

9

12

2,4

Middleweight commanders: 14.01 to 13.02.2014

3

26

-

3

9

14

2,6

Middleweight commanders: 11.03 to 10.04. 2014

4

22

1

2

8

11

2,7

TOTAL

 

89

1

6

34

48

2,5

The physical fitness tests performed pursuant to the valid standard academic curricula included the following test exercises: pull-ups on the horizontal bar for men or integrated strength exercise for women; shuttle 10х10 m sprints; 1 km race; and wrestling holds test (see Table 2).

Table 2. Trainees’ physical fitness entry test scores (n=89)

Group

n

Test exercises, x+m

1

2

3

4

s

Count

s

Points

Junior commanders: 04.02 to 07.03. 2014

Men

12

239,5+4,54

13,6+1,23

26,7+2,09

2,3+0,25

Women

8

284,1+5,24

25,7+2,11

34,9+2,36

2,1+0,27

Junior commanders: 11.03 to 10.04. 2014

Men

16

241,7+4,59

14,1+1,27

26,6+2,11

2,2+0,26

Women

5

282,8+5,27

24,9+2,13

35,1+2,39

2,2+0,28

Middleweight commanders: 14.01 to 13.02.2014

Men

13

233,2+4,47

14,2+1,26

26,4+2,05

2,4+0,24

Women

13

279,3+5,19

24,8+2,12

35,3+2,31

2,2+0,27

Middleweight commanders: 11.03 to 10.04. 2014

Men

13

234,7+4,49

14,6+1,25

26,3+2,05

2,2+0,25

Women

9

281,4+5,26

25,9+2,11

35,2+2,32

2,1+0,26

Note:1 – 1 km race time; 2 – pull-ups on the horizontal bar for men or integrated strength exercise for women; 3 – shuttle 10х10 m sprint time; 4 – wrestling holds test

Analysis of the physical fitness test scores showed that most of the trainees were rated “satisfactorily” fit only by the pull-ups/ integrated strength tests and shuttle 10x10m sprint tests. All the trainees scored “unsatisfactory” points in the combat wrestling holds test and 1 km race test.

Therefore, it should be mentioned that the students coming to the special primary education course are tested with very poor theoretical knowledge base within the scope of their official responsibilities and very poor physical fitness rates as verified by the standard tests.

This finding is supported by the practical physical fitness (wrestling skills) entry tests of the active PSS officers qualified for the 2014 skills-upgrade course at Saint Petersburg Institute for Advanced Training of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service Personnel. Out of 597 officers (ranked with 28 official service categories), 288 people (48.2%) were tested “unsatisfactory” by the combat wrestling skills rating tests.

The above test data shows that the valid standard combat wrestling skills training system in application to the above categories of officers serving at the relevant PSS establishments and institutions (in the Yakut National Autonomous County, Republic of Adygeya, Dagestan, Mari El Republic, Mordovia, Tyva, Chechnia, Krasnodar Territory; Archangelsk, Belgorod, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kursk, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Orel, Rostov, Samara, Saratov, Smolensk, Tambov, Tver, Tomsk and Yaroslav Provinces) gives very formal and poor knowledge and skills and fails to ensure the modern professional fitness standards being met.

A modern training system will be designed based on the traditional curriculum with separate theoretical education and practical training courses, with the acquired knowledge being immediately applied and tested in practice to secure the training process being highly efficient. Special attention in the system design will be given to special training grounds geared to make the training missions as close as possible to the real service conditions. In addition, the special training grounds will give the means to excel the special monitoring/ supervision equipment (including video monitoring systems, electronic locks etc.) control skills [3].

Conclusion. The modern integrated training methods to make the PS officers highly fit for their service responsibilities including the training technologies to simulate real combat situations and help master, in a reasonably stepped manner, the physical counteraction techniques with due emphasis on the legal aspects of the power actions – will help improve the officers’ combat wrestling skills and form the relevant legal knowledge base for their service, operational and combat missions being duly performed [1, 5].

References

  1. Ashkinazi S.M. Puti resheniya problemy integratsii tekhniko-takticheskoy, fizicheskoy i psikhologicheskoy podgotovki voennosluzhashchikh i sotrudnikov silovykh struktur k rukopashnomu boyu (Solutions to problems of integration of technical and tactical, physical and psychological training of servicemen and law enforcement officers for hand-to-hand fight) / S.M. Ashkinazi, A.N. Kochergin// Aktual'nye problemy fizicheskoy i spetsial'noy podgotovki silovykh struktur. – 2013. – № 3. – P. 68–75.
  2. Boevye priemy bor'by v podgotovke sotrudnikov UIS: ucheb. posobie (Combat techniques in MIS staff training: study guide) / A.E. Baturin, V.N. Kovalenko. – St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg IPKR FSIN Rossii (IATIE FPS Russia) Publishing House, 2010. – 456 p.
  3. Donskov D.A. Otdel'nye aspekty pravovogo regulirovaniya primeneniya sotrudnikami ugolovno-ispolniteln'oy sistemy fizicheskoy sily, spetsial'nykh sredstv i taktika ikh primeneniya v razlichnykh situatsiyakh: lektsiya (Certain aspects of legal regulation of use by penitentiary system employees of physical force, special means and tactics of their application in different situations: lecture) / D.A. Donskov, R.V. Puzyrevskiy. – Ryazan: Academy of FSIN Rossii (IATIE FPS Russia) pub. h-se, 2009. – 93 p.
  4. Kontseptsiya razvitiya ugolovno-ispolnitel'noy sistemy Rossiyskoy Federatsii do 2020 goda: rasporyazhenie Pravitel'stva RF (The concept of development of Russian penal system until 2020: RF Government order) 14.10.2010 g. № 1772-r.
  5. Fedorov V.V. O sostoyanii rezhima v ispravitel'nykh uchrezhdeniyakh (Regime in prisons) / V.V. Fedorov // Mater. ucheb.-metod. sborov s nachal'nikami upravleniy, otdelov bezopasnosti (rezhima i nadzora) territorial'nykh organov FSIN Rossii: sb. vystupleniy (Proc. of training of academic meetings with administrators of departments, security departments (treatment and supervision) of territorial bodies of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia: Col. addresses). – Moscow: NII FSIN Rossii (SRI FPS Russia), 2015. – P. 12-25.

Corresponding author: dementevkn2013@yandex.ru

Abstract
The article presents the results of the study of the quality of physical fitness and professional competency of Penitentiary Service System staff, engaged in special initial training and professional development, and discusses the possible directions of their training to use physical force and special means when fulfilling their official duties. Study of the physical fitness level of the staff has revealed a contradiction between the requirements for Penitentiary Service System staff professional competency, taking into account the possibility of Penitentiary Service System Development Concept implementation until 2020, and the actual skills to deal with standard and emergency situations caused by the service realities. The authors have substantiated a number of organizational and methodical measures, which if implemented can help improve the level of mastery of combat maneuvers, formation of a sufficient volume of legal knowledge for the service, operational and combat missions being duly performed.