The “we” of the law enforcement system in Russia – from the perspective of court workers, defense lawyers, and political protesters

Abstract

The article investigates the formation of the “we” of the law enforcement and shows how it affects the professional performance of law enforcers; how the “we” of the law enforcement is reflected by subjects before the law and defence lawyers. Based on data from Russian context, the research uses a combination of ethnographic methods such as shadowing, observations and interviews. Applying the perspective of sociology of emotions, the research shows that the “we” of the law enforcement in Russia is formed by the workload pressure in the context of rapidly changing laws and fueled by such emotions as shame and guilt for inability to do the job with satisfying quality. The article suggests that strong empathy of law enforcers towards each other increases their hostility towards the rest of the society which in turn leads to cautious and mistrusting attitudes towards law enforcement amongst subjects before the law and defence lawyers.