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Radio Liberty - Programs - Round Table
Presenter Lev Roitman
Lev Roitman:
On October 20, Russian Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin reported that over the 9 months of this year, the crime rate has increased sharply, including serious crimes: murders, major thefts, including theft of ammunition, weapons, and terrorist acts. The minister's forecast for the future is completely alarming: the economic crisis will entail an even greater surge in crime, many will try to return lost savings through criminal actions. Meanwhile, sociologists testify: almost half of adult Russians experience tension and irritation, and another 20% experience fear. Crisis and crime - this is what we are talking about today. Participants, all by phone: professor-lawyer Alexander Mikhlin; lawyer, publicist, writer Arkady Vaksberg; and the head of the Guild of Court Reporters of Russia Leonid Nikitinsky.
Crisis and crime in Russia - is there a connection? The participants in the conversation are introduced, but I will add: Alexander Mikhlin is the chief researcher at the All-Russian Research Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Alexander Mikhlin:
If we talk about the crime that exists now, compared to what it was, say, in Soviet times, then, of course, the changes are very big. A whole series of completely new crimes have appeared, which our practice did not know before, and which were not known to criminal legislation. This is due to the fact that the economic system has changed, and, consequently, new crimes have appeared. The crisis, of course, I think, will change the face of crime to a significant extent. Well, apparently, crimes such as bankruptcies and related ones will increase, firstly, because there will be more bankruptcies, and, secondly, the people who sit in banks are not all so honest that they will be guided by the existing rules. Some people will want to declare themselves bankrupt when they are not, in order to reduce payments to debtors; some will pretend that they are bankrupt, although there is no bankruptcy yet and it is not known whether there will be one; It may also be the other way around - those who are on the eve of bankruptcy will pretend that they are in order, so that this bankruptcy will primarily hit their creditors rather than them. It must be said that activities such as racketeering or extortion will apparently increase. Moreover, there will be cases, undoubtedly, they will increase, when people try to exercise their rights in an unlawful way, say, to collect debts when they cannot collect these debts normally, by going to court, and so on. This, of course, cannot be ruled out, and it will probably happen. Apparently, the number of kidnappings for the same purposes will increase, that is, to demand a ransom for the kidnapped person in the amount that this or that person or this or that legal entity must actually pay.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Professor Mikhlin. And yet the crime that you are talking about is mainly not the kind of crime that affects the average Russian. Leonid Nikitinsky, I will introduce you again, for those who were late for the start of our program: You are the leader, or perhaps it would be correct to say the foreman, of the Guild of Court Reporters of Russia. So, in your professional reporting activity, do you feel the increase in crime that the Minister of Internal Affairs statistically speaks about, and the promise of growth that he made in connection with the crisis, and the crisis is everywhere today, it is evident. Do you feel this in the courts?
Leonid Nikitinsky:
It is still a little early to make any complete judgments; in general, sociology requires some kind of temporary opening for obvious trends to appear, but I can hardly agree with you that this crime will pass by the ordinary person. Because, with regard to deposits in banks, the financial crisis directly affected the interests, maybe not of millions, but in any case of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens whose bank deposits were frozen. And this type of fraud has already appeared, how you can get these deposits out of banks, all kinds of deceptions, and so on. In addition, I myself do not have this information, but just a few days ago we had a congress of the Guild of Court Reporters, and First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Vasiliev came to us. He made a very pleasant impression on us, such a general who didn’t look like a cop at all. He said that there is already a jump in crime, and this also applies to extortion, supposedly it has increased one and a half times over the last month, and the number of kidnappings of citizens has doubled in Moscow. Of course, for such a short period of time, these statistics are quite arbitrary, but in general this can actually be expected. And we can expect, of course, an increase in the number of ordinary crimes, such as burglaries, which are associated with unemployment, since the crisis has greatly aggravated this problem - unemployment. Another thing is that we need to figure out who exactly ended up on the street, what categories, and so on. But, I think, just based on theoretical concepts, the criminogenic significance of this crisis will, alas, be quite large.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Leonid Nikitinsky. Thus, if I understood you correctly, you spoke about the so-called white-collar crime: fraud, extortion, which has increased due to the financial side of this crisis, and about ordinary, traditional, criminal, criminal crime. Arkady Iosifovich Vaksberg, everything we talked about is happening in the context of a restructuring of law enforcement agencies. What will this restructuring give, the transfer of the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a number of them, in particular, correctional structures, to the structures of the Ministry of Justice?
Arkady Vaksberg:
The reorganization and reforms that you are talking about seem to me, in principle, very reasonable and long overdue; a lot has been written about this before, much more, by the way, than is being written even now. But here one question arises: in connection with the catastrophic state of crime, I want to understand how these reforms have influenced, are influencing and can really influence the fight against crime, at least on the prevention of recidivism and on many other things in general that concern society. After all, all reforms and reorganizations are not an end in themselves, they are only a means of achieving certain goals, a means is not an end. And if their result is, well, let’s say, a reduction in the apparatus, a reduction in expenses of the corresponding budget line, etc., then these are, perhaps, quite good intentions, but only secondary, not the main ones. I would like to understand what is being done to try to solve the main problem? We don't know this. We are still, as can be seen even in this part of our discussion that has already taken place, in the phase of rather stating a fact, a sad statement of sad facts, but not in the search for specific ways to overcome this. What is the path to solving the main problem? At one time, quite a lot and sensibly was written about this, discussions in which smart, competent people took part were made public, and even if something was not decided, and much was not decided, then society at least saw what these competent people, specialists were concerned about. And this had a positive effect on the formation of public opinion. Now it seems that the power structures, in general, have no time for this, there are more important things to do, or there is a feeling of hopelessness when they give up, and this always fetters initiative. One way or another, rampant crime, which was given the exact name “lawlessness” quite a long time ago, has already become, along with the well-known consequences of this economic catastrophe that we were talking about, the main misfortune for a huge part of the country’s population, here I completely agree with Leonid Nikitinsky. This does not affect the interests of a narrow circle of people, it affects the interests of a huge part of the population, which does not find an answer: what, in fact, is being done, and whether it can be done at all, maybe this is not realistic at all, maybe our lot today is just to state this sad reality and wait to see how events will develop.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Arkady Iosifovich. Alexander Mikhlin, what Arkady Iosifovich spoke about, this restructuring in the system of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which occurred precisely during the crisis, I will remind you of the date - September 1, pre-trial detention centers, so-called pre-trial detention centers, correctional institutions, prisons - everything was transferred from the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the "cap" of the Ministry of Justice and this, of course, is a colossal restructuring, because industrial enterprises of the Ministry of Internal Affairs system were also transferred and so on. Will this restructuring on the fly contribute to the fight against growing crime, as we understand it, in times of crisis?
Alexander Mikhlin:
If we talk about the transfer of the penal system from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice, this is not a new issue. It has been decided for a long time, and its solution is being prepared. After all, when Russia was admitted to the Council of Europe, the transfer of correctional institutions and pre-trial detention centers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice was one of the conditions for our country’s admission to the Council of Europe. This question is not easy, and it required some preparation, and it was carried out. And now we can say that these institutions have almost been transferred. I say “almost” because the relevant laws were adopted by the State Duma, and they passed the Federation Council and signed by the President, in addition, an order was issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs on the transfer of these institutions, but there is still no resolution of the Council of Ministers, which should have been in the last month, because from September 1 these institutions must be transferred. But, apparently, the government has no time for this now, and therefore the signing of this resolution by the government has been somewhat delayed. I think that, in principle, this will not change anything.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Professor Mikhlin. Leonid Nikitinsky, is it possible to think that the criminal world did not notice this restructuring at all?
Leonid Nikitinsky:
I think that most likely he will not notice, and most likely, I think that you are exaggerating the depth of this reform. I recently talked with Yuri Kalinin, who, with the rank of deputy minister, will head the GUIN, he headed this system for 10 years, working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then he was expelled from the Ministry of Internal Affairs under Kulikov, by the way, apparently unfairly, and Stepashin picked him up, he then headed the Ministry of Justice. That is, the same person heads this system, the same people continue to work there, that is, only the sign changes, nothing else. But this change in signage should most likely have a favorable effect on the situation of both prisoners and persons under investigation in pre-trial detention centers. Because, for example, Kalinin gave me this example, I, unfortunately, don’t remember the figure, but about two billion rubles from the GUIN budget were diverted by the former Minister of Internal Affairs Kulikov for other needs, he put it so mildly, “for other needs,” most likely it’s just for Chechnya. So, in the Ministry of Justice, the Minister of Justice does not even have such a temptation - he has nowhere to take this money, and secondly, if we take the number, now the GUIN will correlate with the Ministry of Justice, like a dump truck with a passenger car, and there is also the question of who will command whom. And therefore, those who are sadly in correctional institutions, I think that they will benefit from this.
Arkady Vaksberg:
It seems to me that we have missed one link in our reasoning, which is absolutely necessary, although there are a huge number of such missing links, we will not be able to touch on them all in our short conversation, but one still needs to be talked about. When it comes to the growth of crime, this is directly related to the level of crime detection. It seems to me that our level is extremely low and I think that this is a commonplace, but one cannot help but remember it. Today we have witnessed a clear and convincing confirmation of the textbook thesis that we have always attributed to Lenin (and Lenin himself, by the way, rightly did not attribute it to himself, because he knew that it had been discovered long ago, without him and before him), I mean, of course, the thesis about the preventive significance of the inevitability of punishment, as a factor deterring crime. So, there is no trace of inevitability today - everyone knows this well. The risk of punishment for criminals has decreased so much that many simply do not take it into account. This is such a banality that, it would seem, it is not even convenient to use in a serious conversation, but without this, in my opinion, nothing can be understood. Today, with the help of one crime - bribery - you can avoid responsibility for any other crimes. And this factor so powerfully influences both what we used to call the moral and psychological climate in society, and the state of crime itself, that no matter what measures are taken, no matter what reorganization occurs, no matter how remarkable it is in its design, it will not give any results, because this very factor powerfully influences the state of crime. And when Minister Stepashin, in his very important and useful, in my opinion, public message about the growth of crime, cited various figures, I still would like to understand: what kind of statistical data are these, are we talking about crimes that have been solved and established by a court verdict that has entered into force, or are these statements about the commission of some offenses, crimes that still require disclosure and which may never be solved?
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Arkady Iosifovich, you raised the question. In front of me is the message made by Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Sergei Stepashin. I quote him: “The crime detection rate has increased by 10%,” meaning in the first three quarters of this year. What does this mean? With this question to Professor Mikhlin.
Alexander Mikhlin:
If we are talking about the detection rate of crimes, then the number of criminal cases initiated, that is, the number of registered crimes, is taken as a basis. Some of them are disclosed, some remain undisclosed, that is, the perpetrators are not identified - this is the percentage of detection. But then comes the collection of materials, proof of these crimes and their commission by this particular person. And here, of course, there may be cases of dismissal of cases due to lack of evidence, cases of acquittal by the court. Of course, the best and most objective indicator would be the number of people who were convicted by the court, that is, against whom guilty verdicts were passed. But these are facts that are very difficult to compare, because in the first case we are talking about statistics from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the second case we are talking about statistics from the Ministry of Justice, and they are very difficult to compare. And from them no conclusion can be drawn about what percentage of crimes are solved.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Professor Mikhlin. I say purely abstractly, looking from here: and thank God, because courts that do not justify are judgment seats.
Leonid Nikitinsky:
I will once again refer to the meeting with General Vasiliev, which was at the Guild of Court Reporters, he spoke very interestingly about the indicators, that, on the one hand, the indicators that the Ministry of Internal Affairs traditionally focuses on, and even in the sense that, they say, any crime must be solved - this is absolute stupidity. Any crime cannot be solved either technically or due to the objective balance of forces. Here he gave an example: solving a terrorist attack at the Kotlyakovsky cemetery required the creation of a group of 100 best operatives, that is, it can be calculated that during the same time, 100 of these operatives could solve 300-400 other crimes there. And he said a very interesting, very controversial thing, that now Minister Stepashin even issued an order that the work of the Internal Affairs bodies will be assessed not by the indicators of how many were identified and sent to court, but by the fullness of the budget. It is a very controversial position for me to repeat it after Vasiliev, it would take too much time, but in general, we are talking about focusing not on indicators, but on efficiency, maybe even declaring a kind of amnesty for economic crime and, on some new basis, negotiating with them so that they pay taxes. This approach is controversial, but it may be really effective, we just need to see how much strength and, most importantly, people the Ministry of Internal Affairs has. This requires honest, qualified employees; the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not have them - this is a separate problem.
Lev Roitman:
Thank you, Leonid Nikitinsky. Well, historically speaking, the Russian criminal investigation department is now 80 years old, and we can say that perhaps a controversial approach will somehow help solve the problem, because many seemingly indisputable approaches have not solved it.