Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

Johan Bäckman, Researcher
National Research Institute of Legal Policy
PB 1200, FIN-00101 Helsinki
e-mail: johan.backman@om.vn.fi
NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
The inflation of crime in Russia
Ladies and gentlemen, dear participants of this conference.
The production of a new threat is one of the fundamental principles guiding the new European
security agenda. The menaces of the Cold War seem to haunt Europe, this time in the form of
so-called “organized crime” seen to be proliferating mainly from the countries of the former
East block. As a new external enemy, East European crime - especially the “Russian Mafia” -
serves in the creation of a common identity, as well as arousing calls for the implementation
of centralized police bodies.
Over the last five years I have studied the influence of the Russian crime situation on Finland.
My work has consisted of field work in Finland, Russia and Estonia. I have collected a store
of thematic interviews and other materials in connection with law enforcement officials,
liaison officers and other specialists. In the following, my intention is to depict the hypothesis
I have been working on to explain the impact of Russian crime on Finland, as well as to make
the crime situation in Russia more understandable.
The title of my presentation is “The Inflation of Crime in Russia”.
The starting point for constructing the hypothesis is a paradox. Briefly, if the Russian crime
situation is as alarming as various sources claim, the growing interaction between Finland and
Russia should result in serious criminal consequences for Finland. However, this simple logic
has not held true so far. In the following, I shall briefly attempt to illustrate the empirical
aspects of this paradox.
Most of the information concerning crime in Russia paints a very black picture of the present
situation. According to question polls, one Russian in three actually believes that “the mafia”
governs the Russian Federation. Both foreign and domestic sources often claim that semilegal
and mafia-type organizations control a crucial part of the Russian state, society and
markets. Some students of the Russian markets insist that it is quite natural for all Russian and
foreign businesses to pay protection fees to extortion-orientated mafia-organisations, known
as “roofs” (kryshi) in local parlance. Certain Russian law enforcement officials claim that
most of the money flowing out of Russia is in fact being laundered by organized crime. The
Russian law enforcement agencies are plagued by inefficiency, low or delayed wages, and
corruption; the Ministry of the Interior annually fires approximately 30,000 employees for
abuses of office. In such circumstances it is hardly surprising, that the phenomenon described
as “organized crime” has been defined as the principal public enemy of the Russian state and
society. Especially as the number of exposed criminal groups has multiplied from
approximately 800 in 1990 to over 8,200 in 1995.
The situation in the city of St. Petersburg, which lies only a few hundred kilometers from the
35