Police and the Community in Russia

Abstract

The relationship between police and the public is an old and complicated problem. In Russia, the last centuries show that these relations were not idyllic. The increase of crimes after the Second World War, fear of crime, and moral panic activated a search for effective methods of social control over crime. But a partnership between police and the community remains improbable in contemporary Russia. This paper presents the result of the fourth stage of the study, The Population and the Police in a Large City (1999–2002). The study identified fairly stable crime rates, but a considerable problem of under‐reporting to police. Those who did contact police tended to be satisfied with the response, but detainees were critical of police treatment and there were also worrying levels of public perceptions of corruption. There was also little evidence of the systematic application of the community policing philosophy, suggesting the need for a much more organized strategy to implement community policing.

Keywords:

• Community Policing
• Russia
• Crime Victims