3. The use of conditional sound signals in the criminal subculture

For interconnection and information sharing, criminals, including minors and young people, use conditional beeps (tapping, tapping, clicking). They are used in case of danger. Sound conditional signals in the jargon called "Caspern" (hit). They were spawned by the practice of criminal investigation, especially with confrontations, when the offender gave the accomplice signals: “to be silent”, “to tell a lie”, “to deny everything”, “to take the blame”, etc. As a means of communication, conditional sound signals are used today in special educational institutions and correctional colonies to warn members of the community about the danger of blabbering, uncovering the planned violation of the regime; to call for a boycott in relation to the educator, the teacher in the class or the examiner.
In modern conditions, "Kaspern" as an independent and generally accepted system of sound conventional communication and communication signals does not exist. Most often, it has the form of a narrow-group contractual system of signals, for example, “silence” - one click with your fingers, “tell a lie” - two clicks. In another group or system of interpersonal and intergroup interaction, tapping with one hand can serve as a signal for silence, and a signal to “tell a lie” - tapping with the other hand on the knee, or tapping with one foot (for example, right) on the knee of the left leg, etc. P.
However, the considered situation needs to be clarified, since some experts recognize the presence of generally accepted audio interaction signals.
As a signal of danger, tapping and clicks are used primarily during the conduct of educators, teachers of conversations in groups of minors and youth. Let's give an example. In one of the TV programs about the Moscow Special School, student O., sitting in front of a telephoto lens, said that this school had become his home. For the author of this book, this was surprising, since he knew that O. belonged to the constantly persecuted passive homosexuals, in whom almost all adolescents undergo "training". He constantly escaped to avoid another violence. Subsequently, the student D. said that O. spoke according to the instructions given by Director V.A. Shtaert, and controlled his “bumps”, forcing O. to speak with audible signals (clicks, clapping, stroking his hand) as he was told.
Illegal methods of communication bring to life those regime restrictions that exist in correctional and closed educational institutions. The stricter the regime, the more developed and sophisticated the ways of interaction between minors and young people become, the more carefully the “technology” of transmitting and receiving information is worked out. "Everything is known in the chamber. The devil knows how everyone goes there ... news comes, but only it reaches ..."
Researchers in prison psychology (G. Gross, MN Gernet, NI Yakimov, and others) noted the existence in the past of ways to communicate persons deprived of their liberty by shouting out individual words, singing songs with the emphasis on the right words, etc. .P. "It is worth only a short time to observe what is being done in prisons. Near the doors and windows, day and night, on walks and in the cells, prisoners shout out some inarticulate sounds, words, numbers; they are answered, and, apparently, everyone understands each other, otherwise they would not have continued so much fun. "
These methods of communication in modern IK, special schools and other educational institutions almost never occur. The exception is perekrivaniya teenagers and young people with relatives and friends who arrived on a date, in cases where, for whatever reason, the date is not granted. However, in prisons and remand prisons, persons deprived of their liberty resort to the same kind of communication quite often. Prisoner I., who had just been placed in solitary confinement for participating in the fanaticism of a newcomer during his “registration”, feigned insanity and began to shout out a set of numbers, random words, imitate the cries of animals. He was answered from a nearby cell. It was found that information was being exchanged. The imitation of the cries of animals meant the nicknames of the persons to whom the information should have been conveyed, a set of random words - “instructions” about what should be done, and the numbers - the term of imprisonment.
Another example. Teenager K., being in the transfer department, asked to give him a guitar in his cell and began to sing to her accompaniment. After some time, it turned out that he informed his accomplices about his whereabouts, as well as about the circumstances of the failure and those who had issued them. K. took into account that singing songs that are not part of the criminal lyrics is not prohibited for prisoners. The songs of the person contained in the Ortochala prison (Tbilisi) determined the location of the people who were interested in them: "... Suddenly something warm and bitter spread inside me, it burned every vein, every cell of my body and gathered into a deaf heart with aching pain ... Shoshia sang, Shoshia Gogladze sang in the prisoners' corps ... and the whole prison, holding its breath, listened to his sad song. "
The described ways of exchanging information through songs and crying out were subjected to a special study, which was conducted in 1959-1970. on the materials of the specified prison. Persons held in those rooms where the windows opened onto the inner courtyard and seemingly were tightly isolated from the outside world exchanged information with their relatives and friends who were free by shouting over, songs and visual signals. On the mountain of Ortochalo, at the foot of which the detention facility is located, the relatives established permanent posts from which they shouted information to a prisoner with shouts and visual signals. This information was received by all the convicts and prisoners, whose windows of the windows overlooked the mountain. This information was transmitted to persons held in internal chambers, on walks, through employees of the utility unit, by tapping, while visiting the library and bath. So, to the prisoner D., who was in the unit for suspects, the same information came from 9 persons at once, because according to prison traditions, any person deprived of liberty is obliged to transfer information that he owns to his destination.
The most common system of non-speech communication in the criminal environment of the past is pealing (tukovo-niye, i.e. conditional transmission of letters constituting the word) along a wall, central heating pipes or sewage using Morse code or a special numerical table.
From the history of prison science is well known measures to combat knocking. It:
- construction of silencers in the form of triple walls according to the so-called Shek system;
- installation of a tower clock with a sharp thud of a pendulum:
- installation in the corridors of the buildings of rattles and sirens, included by the wardens during the tapping;
- separation of persons who know the alphabet and the technique of tapping, on cameras, etc.
That was how prisoners struggled with the prison administration, trying to isolate convicts from the outside world, to silence them. The percussion of criminals was prompted by the lack of social and sensory information in solitary and inmate confinement. The use of such measures to restrict the communication of convicts with each other today contradicts the “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” adopted by the UN. Even in solitary confinement, a convict should not be deprived of the necessary sensory and, most importantly, social information. He attends school, participates in collective work, cultural work is carried out with him. He writes newspapers, magazines, listens to the radio and even watches television programs, etc. Therefore, persons deprived of their liberty in modern conditions, as the survey shows, rarely resort to knocking as a means of communication. It is more often among those under investigation and defendants who are trying to obtain information that could have an impact on the investigation and the court, and hence on the relief of fate. Percussion is found in rooms of the chamber type, when serving a sentence in prison.
However, the conditions of detention in pretrial detention facilities are currently so bad that it is impossible to isolate prisoners there, as the cells are overcrowded. “5-6 people sit in singles. In the cells for 25 places, 50-60 people are arrested. In a number of cells (we are talking about the famous Moscow Butyrka), the defendants have to sleep in turns. At a certain hour of the night, one“ extra ”(plenty Soviet newspapers) is going to wake another. " Under these conditions, prisoners dream of being alone or about being sent to the “zone” as soon as possible. But this does not mean that an excess of social information, the constant presence in the mass of people does not encourage them to secret communication. Just the ways of such communication become different.
The absence of the practice of tapping leads to the loss of this skill and, so to speak, the “deprofessionalization” of offenders in this area of ​​prison intercourse. Thus, the death of some important attributes of imprisonment and the appearance of others occur.
We will tell about how one “innovation” of prison authorities in the IK pushed juvenile and young criminals to search for ways to covertly transmit and receive information. In the 1970s, the provision of short visits “through glass” began to be practiced in the colonies. This was done in order to reduce the flow of prohibited items and money into the "zone" (by the way, the author of this article opposed such orders, proving their harmfulness). Relatives who arrived on a date entered the booth, such as a telephone, and on the other hand, a minor entered the same booth. Negotiations were conducted on a special device such as a telephone. It was auditioned by the duty room attendant. To transfer something to prisoners became impossible.
Such dating methods are still used in a number of ITCs. But even at the dawn of Soviet power, the old Russian prison experts strongly opposed the provision of meetings in metal cells fenced off by bars, which did not allow the criminal and those who arrived at the meeting to come into contact with each other. From the modern point of view, this practice is a violation of the rights of the individual, a violation of its dignity. Psychologists say that such meetings exclude the tactile channel of communication (contact, mutual stroking, caressing, etc.), which is very important, especially for minors. If the meeting lasts, for example, three hours, then with a constant written communication of the minor with his relatives after about 40-50 minutes, the verbal-information side of communication exhausts itself. For three hours to have a continuous conversation is impossible. For a teenager, and for parents, another thing is important: so that the mother can embrace her child (even if not already small), caress him. And with such dates it is excluded. The lack of such communication affects the development of the personality of the adolescent, coarsens it, and sadly affects the parents. We note, by the way, that such communication between a husband and wife is simply blasphemous.
However, the exclusion of the tactile communication channel did not stop the flow of secret information from the relatives and from the convicted person to the colony. Information began to be conveyed allegorically, by hints, and most importantly, gestures and facial expressions, "messengers" (connected from among the civilian), the transfer of objects to the production area, etc. began to be used more actively.