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

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NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998 by the theory of criminal law, and motivated by a resistance to change, Russian law enforcement has succeeded in implementing exceptional measures, and in producing more crime. This is reflected in legal reforms and their implementation, presidential decrees, and the establishment of new law enforcement agencies which reveal considerable growth in the production of crime. In comparison to the European Union, for instance, the Russian Federation has been highly effective in defining the phenomena described as “organized crime” as the principal enemy of state and society, and also in the context of producing “organized crime”. The Russian moral codes that condemn private enterprise and profiteering are also contributing to the inflation of crime. As business and profit-making was criminalized speculation, and punished as such, during the eight decades of Soviet rule, it is hardly surprising that the majority of the people have negative attitudes towards private business and its players, condemning them as criminal. Profit-making is causing social tension because of the drastically increasing social inequality. This is naturally considered a threat to state interests, and in effect criminal. Ironically, the crime-orientated interpretations of Russian capitalism that are being offered to the world consciousness draw their inspiration from the dregs of Soviet moral codes. The vulgar leftist background of some Western social scientists, especially in Scandinavia, works to bolster such interpretations. One of the factors promoting the inflation of crime is the emergence of private security policing in Russia. Such activities are often seen as a form of criminal extortion, but more critical evaluation of such sentiments speak for the inflation of crime. Private security companies are the principal cause of the collapse of monolithic state control, thus constituting the principal threat to the state agencies. Producing an image of criminal threats in the emerging markets is ultimately in the best interests of the private security businesses themselves, as such images increase the demand for security services. This also works to promote the inflation of crime. The concept of corruption has also fallen victim to inflation. The newly established relations between private businesses and state officials have become an object of inflated discussion, as the old moral codes condemn the dabblings of state officials in commercial affairs as criminal. In Finland such revelations are a part of everyday life. In addition, corruption scandals are extensively utilized in the solving of political conflicts of interest. Even prostitution has become inflated. Several of my informants said that prostitution is proliferating in Russia at an alarming rate, but when asked what they meant by prostitution, they included in the concept all immoral practices made possible by the market economy, such as the housewife institution or cohabiting adolescents. Of course there are huge numbers of actual prostitutes as well, but categorising all housewifes in the same group does seem inflated. The word “mafia” is also used very liberally by many Russians. Mafia often refers to all possible aspects of contemporary society which contradict the past. The ultimate result of the inflation of crime is, that as the legistlators and enforcers react to such public concerns, the autocratic model of policing becomes predominant. Ladies and gentlemen. 44
NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998 The impact of Russia´s crime situation on the crime situation in Finland clearly shows that there is a cultural division between the two national traditions that produce crime and criminals. In accordance with my hypothesis, the crime-infested image of Russia being produced for our consciousness is fundamentally a product of Russian societal processes that promote inflated arguments about the crime situation. The mechanisms of crime control work to result in the inflation of crime. The information produced in Russia tends to become inflated, especially when projected onto the Finnish, or European forum. Although understanding the differences in systems of crime control, the new European security agenda is prone to exploiting this process of inflation. Thus it may be turned into an inflation of security, and help in the construction of a common threat, and in the forging of a common identity. This would naturally promote the creation of a central system of control in Europe. However, in the Russian Federation the centralized control systems for combating “organized crime” are highly developed and severe, and the inflation of crime has resulted in discussion about actual human rights violations. In addition, nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-semitic tendencies are being nurtured by the inflation of crime. Ultimately it depends on European political conjectures, especially economic policy, how and where the societal processes producing inflatory crime concepts are being utilized. Thank you for your attention. 45
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