Social Change, Legislation, and Crime in the USSR and Russia

Abstract

To grasp the present-day crime situation in Russia, I have to turn to the social and economic situation in the USSR during the late years of the "stagnation period" and during perestroika. In the USSR, crime statistics remained classified up to the late 1980s (below I shall discuss the problem of the reliability of this type of statistics in the USSR and today's Russia). Yet the data available at that time, as well as those made available later, show that the crime rate was moderate—higher than in many European countries but still lower than in the United States. Grave crimes were mostly perpetrated on everyday (routine) grounds, such as murders of one's relatives and acquaintances committed in one's home in a state of intoxication. The publicity of such crimes was, naturally, considerable. Also, the 1985 decree against alcohol abuse provided for the restriction of the sale of alcoholic beverages, the closing down of a great many distilleries, the reduction of vineyards, and the strict prohibition of alcohol abuse during working hours (under the threat of dismissal and, for CPSU members, exclusion from the Party). All these measures helped considerably to reduce the crime rate (by half, approximately) in the next two or three years, including "home" crimes. Beginning in 1987, however, the crime rate began to grow rapidly, this time on account of entirely new factors— primarily the growth of private business.