Crime and the Economy by Richard Rosenfeld Steven F Messner

Author:Richard Rosenfeld, Steven F Messner [Richard Rosenfeld, Steven F Messner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848607170
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2013-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

Crime and institutional regulation: ‘wild capitalism’ and anomie in post-soviet Russia

Not long after the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the Western press began reporting a sharp increase in crime in the ‘new Russia’. The reports chronicled gruesome murders, frequent kidnappings, extortion schemes, protection rackets, blatant sexual harassment and violence, the influence of organized crime on newly privatized businesses, rampant government and police corruption, and a general rise in fear and anxiety in the population. Illustrative accounts include:

‘One day last month, St. Petersburg police found seven corpses: six of the victims had been stabbed in drug-related killings, and the seventh was tortured, burned, tied up with wire and left in a cemetery, the mob’s favorite dumping ground’ (Elliott, 1992: 50).

‘Break-ins have caused a run on steel doors, iron gates and alarm systems. Security companies are thriving, although some are really racketeers whose offer to protect premises are accompanied by vague threats of the consequences if their services are refused’ (Bohlen, 1992: 6).

‘One of the few Russians to take up the battle against sexual harassment is a man. Valery V. Vikulov, 31, says he set up an underground organization … to assist women who have lost their jobs as a result of sexual harassment. … While most of the cases he has handled involve the loss of promotions, bonuses or jobs by women, a few are more extreme. Mr. Vikulov said he had helped one 19 year-old woman … who said she was gang-raped by her employers after a dinner they held to celebrate her promotion’ (Stanley, 1994: 7).

‘… a Moscow banker named Nikolai Likhachev leaves his home en route to work, but before he can reach the security detail waiting by his car, a man with a high-powered rifle shoots him dead. Likhachev had refused to pay more extortion money to a Russian mafia group’ (Duffy and Trimble, 1994: 11–12).

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