The article examines the organization of the activities of prison and police structures in the management system of Russian Turkestan at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from the standpoint of historical and legal science. Among the objectives of the work, an important place is occupied by an attempt to establish their place and role in the region recently annexed to the Russian crown. Special attention is paid to identifying specific relationships with the life of the local, predominantly Muslim, population. The work on archival and publication materials was carried out using a dialectical approach, methods of generalization, analysis, and concretization of facts. Given the increasing migration activity of the modern population of Central Asia to Russia and the lack of significant research on these issues, the article may have not only scientific significance, but also an important applied function.