II. Contemporary Russian Criminality
Organized crime is a part of criminality. And firstly we will look at the trend of criminality and its types in Russia which may prove astonishing (Tables 1,2). We can see:
• The rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) of registered crime decreased in 1963-1965 (it was the time of the Khrushchev's «Thaw») and in 1986-1988 (it was the time of the Gorbachev's «Perestroika»), increased from 816.9 (1987) to 1887.8 (1993) and after a short stable period 1996-1998 increased again to 2700.7 in 2006.
• Reduction in the criminality rate started very unexpectedly and led to a decrease from 2700.7 in 2006 to 2112.0 in 2009.
Unexpectedly for the period of crisis, the rate of criminality has shown a reduction for all main types of crimes (Table 2).
There are two possible explanations to the unexpected reduction of criminality and its types since 2007
Firstly, it may be that crimes are concealed from registration which is considered commonplace these days.
Secondly, there is a real reduction (especially in homicide cases), observed also in other European countries (Harrendorf, Heiskanen, Malby 2010: 16-17,26,28,30; http://www.nplc.lt/centrov/reng/ren014/ren014.aspx). It may be assumed that this trend is the continuation of a worldwide change in criminality dynamics: from the well-documented rise in criminality from late 50 s of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century and a reduction in criminality from the beginning of the 21st century. A special international comparative study of this phenomenon is necessary.
It is possible that a both factors have contributed to this trend.
Table 1. Crimes, offenders and convicts in Russia (1961 – 2009)
Source: Annual «Crime and Delinquency» (1991-2010). Moscow: MVD RF, MJ RF.
Table 2. Various kind of recorded crimes in Russia (2005-2009) (http://crimpravo.ru/page/mvdstatistic/)
