Crime in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

Like other sciences, criminology is international and global. But it is well known that for many decades Russian criminology was isolated from scholarship in other countries and under rigorous political and ideological control. However, during the 1960s a ‘parallel’ theoretical and empirical criminology evolved in the former Soviet Union without party or state approval. This parallel tradition both accumulated empirical data and advanced a theoretical perspective which, in contrast with Soviet ideology, saw crime as a social phenomenon influenced by factors such as inequality, intergroup conflicts, strain arising from blocked opportunities, living conditions, and so on. This tradition emerged from underground only at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s when, thanks to Gorbachev’s Perestroika[rebuilding, reconstruction], Russian scholars gained the freedom to teach, to carry out research and to foster professional contacts with foreign colleagues. Emerging from the ‘parallel tradition’, this article summarizes facts about contemporary Russian society that constitute the essential framework for understanding the crime situation. It discusses crime trends, organized crime, drug abuse and corruption. Finally it provides some basic information about social control and punishment in Russia.