Crime in Russia refers to the multivalent issues of organized crime, extensive political and police corruption, and all aspects of criminality at play in Russia. Violent crime in Siberia is much more apparent than in Western Russia.
Historical trends
Comparison of the crime rates of the Soviet Union with those of other nations is considered difficult, because the Soviet Union did not publish comprehensive crime statistics.Crime in the Soviet Era Federal Research Division, Library of Congress According to Western experts, robberies, homicide and other violent crimes were less prevalent in the Soviet Union than in the United States because the Soviet Union had a larger police force, strict gun controls, and had a low occurrence of drug abuse. However, white-collar crime was prevalent in the Soviet system. Corruption in the form of bribery was common, primarily due to the paucity of goods and services on the open market.
Theft of state property (embezzlement) by state employees was also common. When Mikhail Gorbachev was the General Secretary of the CPSU, an effort was made to stop white-collar crime. Revelations of corruption scandals involving high-level employees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were published regularly in the news media of the Soviet Union, and many arrests and prosecutions resulted from such discoveries. An article published in the Izvestia in 1994 described the difference between the situation of crime in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia:
The crime rate in Russia sharply increased during the late 1980s. The fall of Marxist-Leninist governments in Eastern Europe had tremendous influence on the political economy of organized crime.
Post Soviet
The collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed much of the systems and infrastructures that provided social security and a minimal standard of living for the population,Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation: The Case of the Russian Federation University of Rhode Island and law and order across the country broke down resulting in outbreak of crime. In the transition to a free market economy, production fell and there was huge capital flight coupled with low foreign investment.
Due to these factors, economic instability increased and a newly impoverished population emerged, accompanied by unemployment and unpaid wages. Extreme poverty as well as unpaid wages resulted in an increase in theft and counterfeiting. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, organized criminal groups in Russia and other former Soviet republics have been involved in different illegal activities such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, car theft, human trafficking and money laundering being the most common.
From 1991 to 1992, the number of both officially reported crimes and the overall crime rate increased by 27%. By the early 1990s, theft, burglary, and other property crimes accounted for nearly two-thirds of all crime in the country. There was a rapid growth of violent crime, including homicides. There was the burgeoning black market of firearms, many of them were pilfered from stockpiles of the former Soviet Army.Russians arming themselves. By Fred Weir, Hindustan Times, 12 March 1997
In the 1990s in Russia, as well as in other post-Soviet countries, vast deposits of natural resources and businesses that the state had owned for decades were privatised. Former Soviet bureaucrats, factory directors, aggressive businessmen and criminal organizations used insider deals, bribery and simple brute force in order to grab lucrative assets. Russia's new capitalists spent millions of dollars for protection. However, almost every business in Russia, from curbside vendors to huge oil and gas companies, made payments to the organized crime for protection ("krysha"). Businessmen said that they needed the "krysha" because the laws and the court system were not functioning properly in Russia. The only way for them to enforce a contract was to turn to a criminal "krysha". They also used it to intimidate competitors, enforce contracts, collect debts or take over new markets. It was also becoming increasingly common for Russian businesses to turn to the "red krysha" (the corrupt police who doubled as a paid protection racket). Contract killings were common.Banditry Threatens the New Russia. By David Hoffman, The Washington Post, 12 May 1997
The internationalization of the Russian Mafia along with the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra, the Triads and the Yakuza played a vital role in the development of transnational crime involving Russia.
After the economic situation improved since the beginning of the 2000s, crime in Russia has taken a sharp decline.
Crime by type Murder
In 2020, the murder rate in Russia was 4.7 per 100,000 people, according to Rosstat (the Russian Federal State Statistics Service).Zdravoohran 2021 Rosstat According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the homicide rate was 7.3 in 2020 compared to 10.9 in 2016, a significant decrease over the previous 20 years (in 2000, the homicide rate was 28.1), and only slightly higher than the United States (6.3). In 2017, Moscow recorded the lowest crime rate in over a decade.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia had a higher homicide rate – nearly ten per 100,000 people per year. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the rate remained stable and it was lower than in the United States. There was a rise in the homicide rate in the mid-1960s and 1970s which peaked in 1980, and then slowly declined in until 1985, and then it fell rapidly in 1986–1987.
Until the late 1980s, homicide rates in Russia were nearly similar to that in the United States. The increase in homicide rate in Russia began slightly earlier than 1990, and rose throughout the 1990s. Homicides were more common in Russia than in the Baltic states in 1991 and nearly doubled in frequency by 1994–1995. In 2003, the homicide rate in Russia was among the highest in the world. However, by 2017, homicide rate in Russia had fallen by 75%.
In the early 1980s, an estimated "two-thirds of murders and violent crimes were committed by intoxicated persons". In 1995, about three quarters of those arrested for homicide were under the influence of alcohol. According to Russia's health minister, alcohol consumption fell by 80% from 2013 to 2018.
Statistics
Below is a comparison of the homicide rate in Russia from 1990 to 2018:
YearTotal homicidesHomicide rate199015,600199116,200199223,000199329,200199432,300199531,700199629,400199729,300199829,600199931,100200031,200200133,600200244,252200341,764200439,256200535,636200628,513200724,885200823,427200921,121201018,660201116,406201214,945201313,912201412,561201511,679201610,33120178,84420187,60920197,212
The age pattern of homicide victimization rates in Russia is different compared to that of the United States.Demographic, Temporal, and Spatial Patterns of Homicide Rates in Russia European Sociological Review In 2001, 32% of the homicide victims in Russia were under the age of thirty-five, and 30% of the victims were fifty years or older. There is a wide range of variation in homicide rates throughout Russia. The homicide rate is relatively high in Siberia and Russian Far East compared to European Russia.
Drug trafficking Drug trafficking and illicit drug use is a significant problem in Russia. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, the civil war in Afghanistan, the civil war in Tajikistan, and the conflicts in the North Caucasus have made the favorable conditions for the development of illegal drug trade. In the early 1990s, use of cocaine was increasingly noted among the young population of the nation. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
In the mid-1990s, the growing drug abuse that appeared in Russia was caused by lack of border controls, and the country became one of the world's major transit corridors of drug trafficking. The entrance of producers of cocaine of South America in the Russian market was proved by intercepting cocaine shipments in Saint Petersburg in 1993. As of 1996 internal production of narcotic substances was also rising in Russia.
A limited quantity of illicit cannabis is cultivated in the country. Opium poppies and marijuana are cultivated illegally in the Southern Federal District. Russia is one of the two major drug producers along with Morocco, and one of the five major drug trafficking entry points along with Iran, Turkey, Italy and Spain in the Mediterranean region. The drug trafficking also involves the supply of opium, heroin and marijuana from Central Asia and the Golden Crescent, comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
Russian drug rings work with the Sicilian Mafia and the Colombian drug traffickers to import and distribute cocaine. Many local Russian distributors have connections with criminal organizations in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Ukraine. According to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, a regular trafficking route exists from Tajikistan to Rostov-on-Don via Turkmenistan, and from there to Western Europe. Below are some drug-trafficking routes through the Russian Federation:
Name of DrugSource countryDestination countryPoppy strawBelarus, Lithuania, Moldova, UkraineEstonia, PolandOpiumAfghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, UzbekistanCanada, Europe, Japan, USHeroinAfghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, UzbekistanAustralia, Canada, Europe, Israel, Japan, USCannabisAfghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, UzbekistanCanada, China, Europe, Japan, Republic of Korea, USCocaineBolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Europe, Venezuela, USEurope, Ghana, Oman, South Africa, Zambia
Between 1993 and 1995, the annual amount of seized narcotic substances increased from thirty-five tons to ninety tons. At present approximately 5 million people use illicit drugs in Russia. Russia has the biggest heroin problem along with Iran and Estonia.The drug trade CBC News (Archive)
Several measures have been taken by the government to combat drug trafficking. Russia is a party of the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. In 1994, when Boris Yeltsin was the President of Russia, a committee was founded for coordination of drug policy. In 1995, a three-year counternarcotics program was approved for establishing drug treatment facilities, criminalization of drug abuse, extensions of sentences for drug trafficking, and establishment of pharmaceuticals-monitoring process.
In two major anti-drug operations in 1997, fifty metric tons of narcotic substances were seized and approximately 1,400 criminal organizations engaged in drug trafficking were disrupted or destroyed. In March 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin established the Russian State Committee for Control over the Illegal Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances for combating drug trafficking with more coordinated manner.
Human trafficking
Russia is a supply, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children being trafficked for various purposes. The trafficking is multidimensional and it involves both commercial sexual exploitation and labor exploitation. Russia is a significant source of women trafficked to over 50 nations. Internal trafficking is a problem in the country; women are trafficked from rural areas to urban settlements for commercial sexual exploitation. Men are trafficked internally and from Central Asia for forced labor in the construction and agricultural industries. Debt bondage is common among the trafficking victims.
Arms trafficking