Crime in Central and East European countries

Abstract

For the p u r p o s e of this pape r the Central and East European count r ies are t aken to be the s ta tes s i tua ted in the long bel t be tween the Baltic Sea, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Adria t ic Sea, Greece, and Turkey on the one side, and the Black Sea and the former Soviet Union (with the except ion of the three Baltic States) on the other. The mos t Nor the rn coun t ry of this bel t is Estonia, and the far thes t South are Albania and Macedon ia ( ' the Former Yugoslav Republ ic of Macedonia ' ) . Undoubtedly , Ukraine and Bielorus also be long to the group of Central and East European countr ies , bu t the cr ime pa t t e rn in these two coun t r i e s seems to be more s imi lar to tha t prevai l ing in Russia than in the o the r a f o r e m e n t i o n e d East European countr ies . Generally, two app roaches can be d i s t inguished while looking at social p h e n o m e n a in a region cover ing a n u m b e r of states. The first one, usual ly fol lowed by ' insiders ' , is to focus a t t en t ion on the differences and specia l fea tures of the var ious count r ies in quest ion, whose pecul ia r i t ies are usual ly re la ted, pr imari ly, to their history, na t iona l compos i t ion , religion, t radi t ions , and culture. The o ther approach , which is more of ten chosen by 'outsiders" involves focusing a t t en t ion on wha t makes these count r ies in spi te of all the above m e n t i o n e d differences in some way similar. Al though the au thor is an ' insider ' , the 'outs ider 's ' pe rspec t ive was chosen in an effort to examine the s imilar i t ies in the cr ime pa t t e rn in the var ious count r ies in the region. The m a i n r eason for this a p p r o a c h is tha t unt i l recen t ly all these count r ies have b e e n s h a p e d by the same or very s imilar s t rong forces. The majo r i ty of these coun t r i e s were u n d e r Soviet pol i t ical and economic domina t i on . All of t h e m had an au thor i t a r i an gove rnmen t which rel ied s t rongly on a pol i t ical