Title: Crime, Criminal Justice and Criminology in Post-Soviet Ukraine Series: Issues in International Crime Author: Todd S. Foglesong and Peter H. Solomon, Jr. Published: National Institute of Justice, July 2001 Subject: International Issues: transnational crime, transnational/international organized crime 267,000 bytes --------------------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 for TTY users). --------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice Crime, Criminal Justice, and Criminology in Post-Soviet Ukraine Todd S. Foglesong and Peter H. Solomon, Jr. Issues in International Crime --------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 John Ashcroft Attorney General Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov National Institute of Justice World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov --------------------------- Crime, Criminal Justice, and Criminology in Post-Soviet Ukraine Todd S. Foglesong and Peter H. Solomon, Jr. July 2001 NCJ 186166 Issues in International Crime --------------------------- National Institute of Justice James O. Finckenauer Program Monitor Todd S. Foglesong is a visiting assistant professor of political science at the University of Utah. Peter H. Solomon, Jr., is a professor of political science, criminology, and law at the University of Toronto, where he is also director of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies. Prepared for the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, by Abt Associates Inc., under grant number 99-IJ-CX-0012. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. --------------------------- Foreword As the world shrinks with the ever-increasing speed of communications, the United States faces new challenges resulting from the growing transnational character of crime. Criminal justice officials and policymakers now have to deal with offenses and offenders whose origins and connections lie outside this country. Criminal organizations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and international in the scope of their activities. Foreign policy professionals now have to grapple with issues once considered purely local, such as crime and police reform. Yet as the challenges multiply, the supply of information has not kept pace. Academics and policymakers alike lament the dearth of information on transnational crime. To bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsors the "Issues in International Crime" monograph series, which presents the results of research in this emerging field. The research published in this series is coordinated through NIJ's International Center, whose mission is to stimulate and facilitate research on international crime and justice issues and to disseminate the results of that research to policymakers at all levels. Primarily analytical rather than empirical in nature, the series serves as a vehicle for communicating information on international crime to a target audience that includes policymakers inside and outside the criminal justice system who are attempting to prepare informed policies on complex transnational crime issues, academics who can synthesize the information and teach others about these issues, and criminal justice practitioners. This inaugural monograph, a "white paper" on crime and justice issues in Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is a product of the U.S.-Ukraine Research Partnership that has been conducted by the NIJ International Center since 1998. This partnership reflects the high level of importance that the United States attaches to its rule-of-law and transnational crime initiatives in Ukraine. Subsequent monographs in this series will deal with the Russian organized crime threat, police reform abroad, and the impact of corruption on U.S. aid to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. --------------------------- Preface This study analyzes crime, criminal justice, and criminology in post-Soviet Ukraine. Its purpose is to introduce U.S. criminologists, criminal justice researchers, and other observers to the state of crime and justice in Ukraine. The work will also help scholars understand the character of Ukrainian criminology and assist researchers from both countries in identifying possible projects and potential partners for collaborative inquiries. Chapter 1 is an interpretive analysis of recent Ukrainian political history. It describes the emergence of independent Ukraine and its regional differences, written and working Constitution, central political institutions, and current socioeconomic predicament. Chapter 2 examines patterns of crime and criminality in Ukraine since 1972. It scrutinizes data on ordinary, economic, business, and organized crime, and it explores the reasons behind their growth and transformation in the past 25 years. Chapter 3 analyzes the past and present system of criminal justice in Ukraine. It focuses on problems in policing, prosecution, and criminal procedure, and offers an assessment of the regime's response to crime. Chapter 4 outlines the main institutions and topics of criminological research in Ukraine today. The authors relied upon not only published Russian and Ukrainian literature but also unpublished materials, including statistical reports and government studies, as well as interviews with many scholars, judges, legal officials, procurators, and police officers. Foglesong and Solomon benefited from research assistance and advice from many scholars and legal officials in Ukraine, including Iu.M. Groshevoi, A.G. Kulik, A.A. Svetlov, A.P. Zakaliuk, and V.S. Zelenetskii. The authors are also pleased to acknowledge the contributions of Paul D'Anieri and Rosemary Gartner. In addition, Jim Finckenauer, Gary Chick, Jolene Hernon, and Mark Eckert helped greatly with the publication of this study. --------------------------- Contents Foreword Preface Chapter 1: Independent Ukraine: An Overview Geopolitical Significance Internal Divisions The Ambiguous and Ambivalent Emergence of Independence Ukraine's Constitution Ukraine's Weak State and the Problem of Economic Reform The Outlook: After the Presidential Elections Chapter 2: Crime and Criminality in Post-Soviet Ukraine Patterns of Criminality and Ordinary Crime Explaining Patterns of Criminality Business Crime and Crime in the Economy Organized Crime and Corruption Conclusions Chapter 3: Criminal Justice in Post-Soviet Ukraine The Soviet Legacy Post-Soviet Criminal Justice Fighting Crime in Ukraine: Assessing the Regime's Response The Future of Criminal Justice Reforms Chapter 4: Soviet and Post-Soviet Criminology in Ukraine --------------------------- Independent Ukraine: An Overview Geopolitical Significance Ukraine is one of the linchpins of stability in East-Central Europe. Comparable to France in both area and population, Ukraine is, after Russia, the largest and most prominent of the successor states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Ukraine's geopolitical significance stems not only from its size but also from its location and economic potential. Ukraine connects Western and Eastern Europe. It is, as political geographers say, a critical borderland. Surrounded by Russia in the East, Belarus in the North, the Black Sea in the South, and Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, and Romania in the West, Ukraine is central to European regional security. Ukraine's continued independence will make it impossible for Russia to extend its influence west. As Zbigniew Brzezinski maintains, "It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire."[1] With NATO expanding its borders eastward to Ukraine's western edge, the country's role in maintaining regional stability has only increased. If a newly expanded NATO does not want to find itself facing a resurgent Russia, Ukraine will have to remain independent and resist the stationing of Russia's troops on its soil. Ukraine clearly has the political desire to remain independent of Russia, but it is not clear that Ukraine has the economic wherewithal and internal stability to back up its political goals. Its turbulent history, the legacy of Soviet rule, the immaturity of its democracy, and the chaos of its economy call into question Ukraine's coherence as an independent state. Moreover, if Ukraine continues to provide a hospitable environment for organized crime, it will provide a constant source of problems for NATO and European Union (EU) countries, as problems with the drug trade and trafficking in women already demonstrate. These factors help explain the immense attention the country has received in U.S. foreign policy in recent years (in 1998, Ukraine was the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, behind only Israel and Egypt).[2] Internal Divisions Ukraine's history has been defined by its own internal divisions between east and west. Most of eastern Ukraine has been under Russian control since the 17th century, and the Russian state today traces its roots to medieval Kiev (which it emphatically calls Kievan Rus). The western quarter of the country (including areas traditionally known as Galicia), with between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total population, was not linked to Russia or the Soviet Union until 1939. These areas were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1920, when a large portion of this territory was incorporated into interwar Poland; it did not become part of the U.S.S.R. until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ceded this part of Poland to the U.S.S.R. This divisive and well-remembered history is largely responsible for two complicated political problems today. First, Ukrainian society is divided into two parts with largely different histories, different experiences with democracy and the free market, and different attitudes toward those institutions. The population in the western part tends to identify with the models being provided by its neighbors to the west-the former Hapsburg territories of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. In eastern Ukraine, ties with Russia are much stronger, and there is greater identification with and affinity for traditionally Russian political culture and institutions. Second, Ukraine has a very complex relationship with Russia, with its citizens' attitudes toward Russia tending to follow Ukraine's regional divisions. For Ukrainian nationalists, Russia is the historical enemy of the Ukrainian people, having subjugated Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries and then causing the deaths of millions of Ukrainians during the Great Famine of 1932 and 1933. Other Ukrainians identify closely with Russia because of their shared history, language, and culture and a high rate of intermarriage between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians, who make up 22 percent of the population of Ukraine. Although 73 percent of Ukrainian residents identified themselves as "Ukrainian" in the 1989 Soviet census, only a minority (approximately 40 percent) of Ukrainian citizens speak Ukrainian as their primary language, and a large number of ethnic Ukrainians define themselves as having mixed Russian-Ukrainian ethnicity when given that choice on surveys.[3] For these ecumenically minded Ukrainians, Russia and Ukraine have indissoluble links: The two countries sprang from the same source--medieval Kiev--and have shared similar and tragic fates. Moments of political unity in Ukraine have been rare. Ukraine's declaration of independence, for example, was widely supported across the political spectrum, and in the December 1991 referendum on independence, more than 90 percent of citizens voted for independence, including a majority in every region of Ukraine, even those traditionally linked to Russia. Since that time, however, the society and government have been divided about how to proceed on virtually all significant issues, including relations with Russia. Many of those who supported independence were dismayed to see the government rupturing longstanding ties with Russia. After several years of acrimonious relations, a tentative compromise was reached, in which Ukraine upholds economic ties with Russia but does not participate in Russian-led regional groupings such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Customs Union. On the central question of domestic economic reform, however, there is no consensus, little middle ground, and virtually no prospect for a harmonious political resolution. The Ambiguous and Ambivalent Emergence of Independence Like other Soviet successor states, Ukraine first acquired economic autonomy as a result of the political decentralizations of the Mikhail Gorbachev era. Gorbachev had hoped to improve the country's economic performance by increasing the authority and accountability of the constituent republics and by taking decisions out of the hands of the middle-level bureaucrats who depended on the stagnation of Leonid Brezhnev's system for their survival. The first and last President of the U.S.S.R. was willing to concede daily control of both political and economic affairs as long as the republics would pursue centrally set, Union-wide goals. Greater autonomy, of course, appealed to both Ukrainian nationalists and the reigning political elite in Kyiv. Politicians gained notoriety and power without much added accountability, and nationalists acquired the semblance of statehood. When the opportunity for a nonbinding and painless proclamation of sovereignty presented itself in July 1990, Ukraine took it. Well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, therefore, Ukraine enjoyed most of the prerogatives of an independent state without losing its membership in or access to the resources of a reorganized U.S.S.R.[4] Genuine independence was achieved suddenly, in the wake of the August 1991 putsch. In fact, the Ukrainian state was created almost spontaneously, in a rush of pronouncements in the late summer and fall of 1991.[5] An amalgam of nationalists and an opportunistic political elite hammered out a pact of mutual convenience that led to Ukraine's secession from the U.S.S.R. Put simply, the nationalists made a deal with political and economic officials (the nomenklatura) in Kyiv. The nationalists promised not to try removing the government from power in its drive for independence if the government in Kyiv would break with the Soviet Union. This was considered positive by both sides: The nomenklatura obtained its primary goal, retaining power, and the nationalists achieved their ultimate goal, an independent Ukraine. Finally, in December 1991, in a Belorussian forest outside Minsk, President Leonid Kravchuk signed an agreement terminating Ukraine's participation in the Soviet Union. The fact that independence was brought about neither by revolution nor by the overthrow of the ruling elite has had lasting consequences for politics and policies in Ukraine. By agreeing to let the Communist-era government retain power under a new label, the opposition made future political and economic change extremely difficult. Very few, if any, government officials had an interest in the rapid changes that political and economic reformers sought and that the country objectively needed. Also, the expectations among nationalist reformers that the old guard would gradually be swept from power were naive. Since 1991, the nomenklatura has managed quite easily to preserve real power and control over property by means of a simple strategy--by "recruiting to its ranks the most conformist leaders of the former counter-elite and by a timely change in its slogans for the sake of a new 'legitimacy.'"[6] In addition, the Communist Party of Ukraine, to which many elite figures still belong, has been at least as rigid and conservative as Russia's (observers had speculated that the Ukrainian communists endorsed independence so Gorbachev would not force upon them reformist economic policies). The deal brokered by nationalists in 1991 left in power officials vitally interested in the preservation of the previous political and economic system. A powerful and entrenched opposition to change was thus built into the Ukrainian political transition. Ukraine's Constitution It was not until 1996, and the settlement of a protracted political crisis, that Ukraine adopted a new Constitution.[7] However, the constant battles over authority between the President, Prime Minister, and Parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) that preceded the adoption of the Constitution have not abated. In fact, the new Constitution has merely reinforced and institutionalized conflict at the apex of political power. Ostensibly a French semipresidentialist system, in which the Prime Minister and President share executive authority, the Ukrainian Constitution operates in practice like a fitful authoritarian regime. The President has very broad powers, including control over the Government.[8] The Prime Minister is not selected from the party leaders in the Rada but, rather, is an outside official confirmed by the Rada upon nomination by the President. And because the legislature has little say in the formation of the Government, its acquiescence or cooperation in the development of policies is not easily obtained. Add to this too many fractious and underdeveloped political parties, and you get peculiar constitutional architecture that aggravates the disputes inherent in ideological, regional, and cultural differences in Ukraine.[9] The fact that there is no democratic way of resolving these disputes (both the President and the Rada are elected directly by the population) tends to escalate political confrontations in Ukraine. There have been two post-Soviet Parliaments in Ukraine, both dominated by socialists and neither capable of forming coalitions. This fragmentation of the legislative assembly is as much the consequence of ideological differences as it is of the inchoate party system.[10] For a variety of historical, political, and institutional reasons, organized political parties have played only a minor role in postindependence Ukrainian politics, although that role seems to be increasing under the new electoral law. The 1994 Rada was elected in 450 single-member districts, according to a majoritarian electoral rule. The result was a large number of independents in the Rada. For the 1998 elections, the electoral law was changed to a mixed plurality/proportional representation system, in which 225 members were elected in single-member districts, and 225 were elected on the basis of party lists. The new law was intended to strengthen parties and add coherence to the Rada, but no party in the Rada commands a majority or is able consistently to put forward a program that can win the support, or compel the acquiescence, of the President. Like its Soviet predecessor, Ukraine remains a unitary state under the 1996 Constitution (article 132). There are three tiers of government: national, regional, and local (which includes cities, city and rural districts, and villages and rural settlements). Regional (oblast) and local (raion) governments are subordinated to higher level governments in virtually every respect (article 118). The intergovernmental structure remains, formally, a strict hierarchy. The unitary state is also reflected in the budget structure of Ukraine, which mirrors the governmental structure. The budgets of lower level governments are essentially "nested" within the budgets of their corresponding higher level governments. At the same time, those departments of regional and local governments that still double as components of central ministries (also known as dual subordination) normally receive a large part of their budgets (especially the salary component) directly from the ministry. This pattern applied, for example, to regional police departments, which remained part of the national Ministry of Internal Affairs. Overall, intergovernmental fiscal relations in post-Soviet Ukraine are marked by a high degree of revenue dependency and are reminiscent of centralized fiscal management under the Soviet system. Ukraine's Weak State and the Problem of Economic Reform Although a 1990 Deutsche Bank report judged Ukraine the most promising post-Soviet economy, Ukraine has been a financial disaster since 1991. The first 3 years of independence were accompanied by hyperinflation, and between 1991 and 1998, Ukraine's real gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 63 percent (compared with slightly more than 40 percent in Russia). Among the postsocialist countries, only Albania and Turkmenistan have suffered more severe downturns. Virtually no sector or industry has escaped a deep and broad depression. Although many aspects of macroeconomic stabilization were achieved after 1994, including the introduction of a new currency (the Hryvnia) in 1996, the prospects for recovery soon were bleak. Most economic indicators and international authorities paint a dire picture for Ukraine. In 1996, the World Bank categorized Ukraine as among the group 4, or slow reform, countries. In 1997, the World Economic Forum ranked Ukraine as the 52d of 53 countries in overall competitiveness in its Global Competitiveness Report. And in 1998, the Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom ranked Ukraine as the 125th of 156 countries, labeling Ukraine as among the "mostly unfree" economies of the world. Industrial investment (both domestically and from abroad) remains low, despite lower inflation and a more stable currency. Since 1995, Ukraine has become dependent on massive infusions of capital from multilateral lending institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to prop up its economy. For the average Ukrainian, the consequences of the economic collapse have been devastating, even if difficult to quantify. Hyperinflation ruined the savings of the most defenseless sectors of the population, especially pensioners and the unemployed. Official unemployment rates are still approximately 3 percent, although this is not an accurate measure. Many workers have been placed on administrative leave, or are officially listed as employed but paid as part-time workers or not at all. In March 1993, inspections of 6,900 enterprises conducted by the State Center of Employment revealed that nearly 572,000 of the 3.9 million workers, or 14.6 percent, were on long-term leave. In certain regions of Ukraine and branches of industry at that time, more than 44 percent of workers were compelled to take leave, which resulted in levels of hidden unemployment reaching 58 percent. Recent estimates place the number of hidden unemployed at close to 3.5 million. Many of these workers have turned to "shadow activities" for their sustenance. Registered unemployment grew from 162,000 in January 1996 to 351,100 in January 1997, before reaching 1,052,000 by July 1998. The International Labour Organization (ILO), however, estimated actual unemployment levels at closer to 9.8 percent, or three times the official rate. The situation is so dire that many Ukrainians go to Russia as guest workers. As in the cases of other countries undergoing such profound socioeconomic collapses, these conditions are criminogenic, a topic explored in detail in chapter 2. Despite the extreme centralization of executive authority in Ukraine, and the constitutional right to rule by decree, the President has not been effective at governing or reforming the economy. Leonid Kuchma, the former Prime Minister and current President, has been much more reform minded than his predecessor Leonid Krav-chuk and both Parliaments, but he has not taken many necessary steps for economic recovery and has been unable to implement his programs or laws. The most striking policy failures have been in the areas of large-scale privatization (especially in the agricultural sector), corporate restructuring, enterprise governance, and creation of an investor-friendly business climate. Part of this policy failure stems from the state's own internal political divisions and the difficulty of simultaneously undergoing a fundamental political and economic transition. But much of the incapacity of government is the result of the state's internal institutional weaknesses and illegitimacy. The government simply has difficulty commanding the loyalty of its subjects. It cannot predictably or reliably perform the most basic function of government: collecting taxes. It also has trouble obtaining the obedience of its own civil servants, as the discussion of corruption in chapters 2 and 3 will show. In this sense, Ukraine is a quintessential case of what political scientists call a "weak state."[11] Advisers from the IMF and World Bank have strongly emphasized the need for improvement in tax collection, and draconian measures have been attempted. In the summer of 1998, for example, former Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko summoned several hundred prominent businessmen to a resort outside Kyiv, ostensibly for economic consultations. He then held the businessmen hostage in the Maryinskyi palace, releasing them only after they paid their taxes. While these tactics sent a message about the state's need for revenue, the government has not made significant improvements in tax collection. This chronic revenue crisis in Ukraine has had deleterious consequences for law and order and the reform of the criminal justice system, which is discussed in chapter 3. It has also thwarted economic reform. The sources of economic decay and decline lie in three areas. First, although Ukraine is rich in natural resources, most of these were depleted during the Soviet period. Extraction costs in many cases exceed the prospective sales prices. Second, the Soviet Union left Ukraine with an economic base that was not viable in market terms. In particular, eastern Ukraine has enormous mining and metallurgy concerns that can neither be made profitable nor shut down without making redundant a substantial percentage of the workforce. No realistic transition strategy has been developed to phase out these industries. Third, Ukraine is highly dependent on Russia for its energy and has suffered a huge decline in terms of trade in the shift to world market prices: Ukraine's energy import costs have increased far more than the prices of its industrial and agricultural exports. Ukrainians with connections to Russian exporters have taken advantage of the price differentials and their administrative authority to reap huge illegal profits from this import business. Together with these systemic problems, the weakness of the Ukrainian state has facilitated the expansion of a shadow, or unofficial, economy. The shadow economy was estimated at 60 percent of total real gross domestic product (GDP) in 1996.[12] Its growth has been swift. As early as 1992, a survey of 223 private firms found that 54 percent of their aggregate profit was derived from shadow activities. In 1994, a poll of 200 companies operating with foreign capital revealed that 55 percent of their business was involved with the shadow economy. By 1997, approximately 40 percent of all currency was circulating outside the official banking system.[13] A significant proportion of the labor force is, therefore, at least partially, if not wholly, employed in shadow activities. In a strict sense, all of this activity is illegal, and some, as discussed in chapter 2, is closely linked to the criminal world. The shadow economy, it should be emphasized, is at least partly attributable to excessive state regulation, which businesses have a hard time distinguishing from racketeering. The byzantine tax system, onerous business registration requirements, and complex (and often contradictory) regulatory rules under which all legitimate economic interests must operate place in the hands of underpaid and overworked administrators innumerable opportunities for using public office for private gain. More than 1,000 types of commercial activity are subject to licensing. Twenty-five separate state agencies have the right to audit businesses, and the average number of such annual checks has risen from 34 to 296. Ukrainian enterprises spend the equivalent of an estimated 3 percent of GDP on regulatory compliance each year. All of these rules and regulations have the effect of providing an army of state inspectors the power to shut down any enterprise in the country, unless a bribe is paid. To some extent, the state itself has forced firms into the shadows by making legitimate and profitable business nearly impossible. Many of the Government's seemingly irrational economic policies also provide incentives and opportunities for crime and corruption. For example, the combination of hyperinflation and massive subsidized state loans enabled those with access to state loans to borrow money from the Government, convert the money to U.S. dollars, and then, after watching the currency lose much of its value, convert only a portion of the dollars back into local currency to pay off the loan, pocketing the remainder. Similarly, the lack of privatization of enterprises gives state managers the ability to sell their assets at grossly undervalued prices in return for a cash side-payment, often deposited in a foreign bank account. Barter trade, prompted by currency instability, made such transactions easier to hide by making prices difficult to monitor. Thus, former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko (currently in a Federal prison facing criminal charges in both the United States and Switzerland) was reportedly able to make a fortune when he was able to use his control of state petroleum firms to buy gas at the subsidized rate, sell it at world market prices, and deposit the profits in Swiss banks.[14] The Outlook: After the Presidential Elections In most modern democracies, the completion of a presidential election usually signals the termination of open political conflict. Political foes return to their customary seats to conduct politics as usual. This does not occur in Ukraine. Far from settling and restructuring relations between government and opposition, the reelection of President Kuchma in October 1999 unleashed a new round of very public and intensely partisan political battles. In 2000, the President and the Rada were involved in what appeared to be irreconcilable institutional conflict. Two months after his election victory, Kuchma proposed a referendum on constitutional changes to extend the power of the president of Ukraine. He claimed that the current Constitution gives insufficient power to the President and thereby stymies policy initiatives, especially economic reform. Over the objection of the Council of Europe, which was alarmed by the authoritarian implications of a further extension of presidential prerogative, Kuchma endeavored to put to the people six propositions: o Should the President be allowed to dissolve the Rada if the present referendum shows that the public lacks confidence in the current legislature? o Should constitutional changes be made by referendum? o Should the President have the right to dismiss the Rada if, within 1 month, it is unable to form a permanent parliamentary majority, or approve the state budget within 3 months from the moment it is submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers? o Should the immunity of Rada deputies be withdrawn? o Should the number of deputies be decreased from 450 to 300? o Should the Rada be a bicameral legislature instead of a unicameral body? Ukraine's Constitutional Court disallowed the first two questions, but on April 16, 2000, nearly four-fifths of the population voted overwhelmingly in favor of the four remaining propositions.[15] Despite the mandate given to Kuchma by the plebiscite, the referendum has not solved this latest constitutional crisis. Kuchma lacks the support of the two-thirds of the deputies in the Rada required to introduce changes to the Constitution. And although the Constitutional Court has reminded the Rada that the results of the referendum are obligatory, the legislature remains defiant. It is not clear how Ukraine will extract itself from this impasse. The worst, but by no means least unlikely, scenario is that the President will dissolve the Rada and declare the Constitution changed by decree. The best, or at least most peaceful, scenario is that, through the politics of compromise and clientelism, Kuchma can engineer more modest legislative and constitutional changes. Whatever form the resolution of the crisis takes, state policy on corruption and organized crime is unlikely to change dramatically. The intrigue of stripping deputies of their parliamentary immunity will likely engulf, and possibly disfigure, any new policy or legislation directed toward the fight against corruption and organized crime. Neither current nor future deputies are likely to expose themselves and their constituencies to the scrutiny of the law enforcement agencies, which support the President in this showdown. In short, the current political environment is not conducive to bold new anticrime measures. Even if the current President had a coherent reformist policy agenda, little of it could be achieved in this highly confrontational political environment. International organizations and foreign assistance projects must take this into consideration as they endeavor to lobby for changes in Ukrainian law enforcement practices. --------------------------- Notes 1. Brzezinski, Zbigniew, "The Premature Partnership," Foreign Affairs 73 (2) (March-April 1994): 80. 2. Wolczuk, Kataryna, "The Politics of Constitution Making in Ukraine," in Contemporary Ukraine: Dynamics of Post-Soviet Transformation, ed. Taras Kuzio, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998: 118-38. 3. For a lengthy discussion of these regional and ethnic divisions, see Wilson, Andrew, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 4. For a more detailed account of these developments, see Garnett, Sherman, Keystone in the Arch, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997. 5. According to Alexander Motyl, "[V]irtually no one in or out of the government was prepared for independence or its aftermath." Motyl, Alexander, Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine After Totalitarianism, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993: 50, 75. 6. Polokhalo, Volodymyr, "The Neo-Totalitarian Transformations of Post-Communist Power in Ukraine," Politychna Dumka/Political Thought, no. 3 (1994): 133-4. 7. For an account of the constitutional impasse in 1995, see Wolczuk, Kataryna, "The Politics of Constitution Making in Ukraine" (see note 2). 8. The President thus effectively appoints the Prime Minister, who, in turn, directs the Cabinet of Ministers (article 106). The President also has the authority to appoint certain individual ministers. He has veto power over legislation, although there is provision for a parliamentary override. He can still overturn acts taken by the Cabinet of Ministers, but it is not clear that he can revoke the actions taken by individual ministries unless they violate the Constitution. The President also appoints the heads of local state administrations upon the recommendation of the Cabinet of Ministers. 9. For an analysis of the problems of semipresidentialism in Ukraine, see Wilson, Andrew, "Ukraine," in Postcommunist Presidents, ed. Ray Taras, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997: 67-105. For a description of similar constitutional confrontations in Russia, see Huskey, Eugene, Presidential Power in Russia, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. 10. According to Alexander Motyl, "The absence of an institutionalized party system means that . . . effective parliamentary rule is virtually impossible." Motyl, Alexander, Dilemmas of Independence (see note 5): 50. 11. For an indepth study of state weakness in Ukraine, see D'Anieri, Paul, Robert Kravchuk, and Taras Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999: 90-140. 12. See Razumkov, et al., "Report of the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies: The Shadow Economy and Organized Crime in Ukraine" in Zerkalo nedeli Kyiv, February 10, 1996: 16, as translated from the Russian in FBIS-SOV-96-094-S. 13. Paskhaver, Alexander, "Ukraine's Shadow Economy During the Period of Transition," The Ukrainian Economic Monitor 3 (6) (13) (June 1996): 6-11. 14. In 1998, Pavlo Lazarenko fled Ukraine to the United States before he could be charged with criminal corruption. However, when Switzerland charged him with money laundering in 1999, he was arrested in the United States pending an extradition hearing. In May 2000, the U.S. Government also indicted Lazarenko on charges of money laundering, for which he is to face trial in 2001. In the fall of 2000, Lazarenko pleaded guilty to the Swiss charges and agreed to return some $6 million to the government of Ukraine. The request for extradition to Switzerland was dropped. 15. See, for example, the coverage of the referendum results in the electronic RFE/RL Newsline, 4 (77), part 2 (April 18, 2000). --------------------------- Crime and Criminality in Post-Soviet Ukraine Between 1989 and 1999, Ukraine, like other former Soviet republics, experienced a dramatic (approximately 2.5-fold) surge in its overall rate of recorded crime.[1] This increase should come as no surprise, for during this time the collapse of an entire economic system, enfeeblement of the state and its capacity to enforce its laws, and radical changes in social structure occurred. Two stories define the organization of this chapter. The first concerns crime as a whole, especially ordinary crime, such as property crime, and crimes of violence. This is where the major surge in activity (and in police registration of activity) occurred. As discussed later, the really dramatic change occurred not in crimes of violence but, rather, in simple theft. On one hand, the rise in theft almost certainly reflects the changes in social structure, whether reflected in class differences, social disorganization, or social strain. On the other hand, the Soviet rates of property crime were so low compared with those in Western European countries that one might qualify the story as normalization. The other big story was the criminalization of the economy; that is, development of economic activities of organized crime (such as trade in narcotics) and the symbiotic relationship between the criminal world and much of private business. These businesses have come to rely upon criminal organizations for protection and also face strong incentives to evade government taxation. Then there is the involvement of government officials as participants more than as combatants of these activities, and the spread of what is seen as corruption. There is, to be sure, some overlap between the worlds of ordinary and business-related crime, especially if one defines organized criminal groups loosely. But, for purposes of analysis, the distinction remains useful. In examining these stories, we will pay close attention to what is distinctive about the Ukrainian situation, in both reality and perception. The leading local commentators on crime in Ukraine emphasize that, notwithstanding the growth of crime, Ukraine continues to have a much lower rate of recorded crime than the Russian Federation, still 40 percent less in 1995.[2] Comparisons with other post-Soviet republics suggest that it is Russia that is the outlier; but explaining this dramatic difference contributes to better understanding Ukrainian realities.[3] Beyond reality there is the matter of perception. In the writings of both criminologists and other commentators in Ukraine, one encounters a strain of pessimism that may or may not be warranted. This pessimism takes the form of assertions that Ukrainian officials are more corrupt than their Russian counterparts, or that the dark figure of crime (the crimes unknown to or unrecorded by the police) is larger in Ukraine.[4] Ultimately, these perceptions may matter more than the reality behind them. Finally, in analyzing crime trends in Ukraine, this chapter relies on official data on crimes registered by the police. This is the main indicator of criminality used by Ukrainian criminologists and law enforcement officials alike. However, it is not the same as crimes reported to the police, much less the amount of crime actually committed. As chapter 3 explains, in the late Soviet period the police in Ukraine failed to register roughly one-third of the crimes reported to them, and this share increased during the post-Soviet period. Although many complaints to the police did not withstand scrutiny, police were also known to refuse to register "criminal manifestations" for other reasons, such as the unlikelihood of solving the case. Understanding the meaning of criminal statistics in any country during any epoch requires coming to terms with the incentives that shape the recording practices of the police, and this is especially so in late Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine. In short, analysts and casual observers alike must treat Ukrainian statistics with caution. One must be especially careful not to make large inferences from relatively small changes in the dynamics of crime. This chapter, however, focuses mainly on large-scale or macrolevel changes in crimes registered by the police, changes that reflect underlying realities, notwithstanding variations in citizen reporting and police registration of crimes. We will indicate and discuss the situations in which these practices seem to shape or distort the data in major ways (for example, in statistics on organized crime). Patterns of Criminality and Ordinary Crime Although the great surge in crimes committed and registered in Ukraine occurred from 1989 to 1995, there had been a pattern of gradual increase from the mid-1960s. The trend accelerated in the years from 1978 to 1983, then briefly stabilized in the mid-1980s and even declined in 1987 and 1988 as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's antialcohol campaign. Overall, between 1972 and 1989, rates of recorded crime more than doubled. Explaining this change requires a knowledge of history. In part, the increase reflected the growing urbanization of Ukraine (and the U.S.S.R.) - -the percentage of citizens living in urban areas in the U.S.S.R. grew from 56 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 1989--but even more it resulted from the declining influence of factors that had kept crime rates artificially low in previous decades. At least four factors combined from the 1930s through the first half of the 1960s to keep crime rates in the U.S.S.R. and Ukraine low, despite remarkably high rates of urbanization. One factor involved shifts in the scope of the criminal law, especially periodic exercises in decriminalization. Thus, in the mid-1920s, public drunkenness and petty theft were shifted to administrative jurisdiction. Decriminalization came in enforcement practice as well as in law; in the wake of Joseph Stalin's harsh decrees on theft in 1947, police for the most part stopped prosecuting juvenile offenders for thefts.[5] A second factor involved demographic changes, as collectivization and World War II artificially reduced the number of young men (the main crime-committing group) in the population. This factor had a major impact in the 1950s. When a new generation of youth began to influence crime rates in the early 1960s, some of the responsibility for addressing this issue was shifted to juvenile affairs commissions and the offenses were effectively decriminalized.[6] A third factor influencing crime rates was the change in property relations and in patterns of production that occurred in the early 1930s. The decline in private property and the amount and attractiveness of consumer goods led to a corresponding decline in theft of private property. Although employee theft of state property became an epidemic, it was treated as an administrative offense until 1940 and, once criminalized, was often ignored.[7] Police methods of recording crimes became a fourth factor. For much of Soviet history, police were evaluated on the basis of rates of solving crimes (raskryvaemost), which encouraged them not to register crime reports, especially thefts, where there were no obvious suspects. At times, police were known to keep a separate parallel record of "criminal manifestations," which were not entered in official statistics.[8] The period from 1965 to 1988 witnessed a change in the conditions that had suppressed crime rates. First, after decades of disturbance some demographic normality was achieved. Second, no further significant decriminalization occurred; in fact, a series of police campaigns encouraged the qualification of more petty offenses as criminal. Third, and most important, the Soviet economy finally began producing a significant amount of goods worth stealing. As the Brezhnev government adopted a policy of increasing production of various consumer durables, a parallel or shadow economy (sometimes called the second economy) emerged to facilitate production and distribution of consumer goods. The shadow economy was itself a criminogenic phenomenon involving illegal production and trade, bribery of officials, misappropriation of supplies, and the use of private protection services. This economy also affected ordinary crime, providing more opportunities for property crime and involving a large part of the population in law-avoidance activities that eroded its already low respect for law.[9] As exhibit 2.1 shows, these factors contributed to a fairly steady increase in the total number of registered crimes in Ukraine during this period. In 1989, the number of registered crimes in Ukraine rose by 32.7 percent over the previous year, from 242,974 to 322,340, which requires special explanation. In 1989, the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Internal Affairs called for a change in police registration practices, instructing police agencies to include all reported crimes (and promising to disregard the resultant low rates of detection). The purpose of this artificially generated crime wave became obvious when police officials publicized the data, hoping to generate a panic: The inflated numbers were used to attract more resources for the police.[10] Although the change in police reporting explains a portion of the 1989 crime wave, there is reason to believe that there was an actual increase as well. That year represented the beginning of the end of the Soviet economy, the year when suppressed inflation led to a shortage of goods in the main economy, as the bulk of goods were produced in and distributed through the shadow economy. The real prices necessary to acquire scarce goods in the second economy became excessively high, especially when members of the public resorted to hoarding. It is reasonable, then, to suppose that the sudden new impoverishment of part of the public in 1989 led to a real surge in property crimes such as theft. Also, as exhibit 2.2 shows, in Ukraine between 1990 and 1995, the amount of recorded crime increased at an annual average rate of 12 percent, reaching its peak of 641,860 in 1995. Each of the next 3 years registered a decrease in the order of 3 to 4 percent per annum. The most likely explanation for this decrease is the changes in police practice involving more qualification of less serious incidents as administrative, rather than criminal, offenses (a quiet decriminalization) and an increasing tendency not to record incidents with no suspects, owing to a concern about solution rates).[11] According to Genady Udovenko, a former presidential candidate and the current Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Ukrainian legislature, the decline in reported crime for 1997 was "artificial."[12] Property crime The surge in recorded crime between 1989 and 1993 reflected a major change in the structure of crime. The number of property crimes, such as theft, robbery, swindling, and extortion, and economic crimes, such as bribery, counterfeiting, and trading in narcotics, grew much faster than crimes of violence, especially murder, serious assault, and hooliganism. The result was that the percentage of crimes against property rose from a one-third to a two-thirds share of all crime, while the percentage of violent crimes fell from two-thirds to one-third.[13] Although a preponderance of crimes with "mercenary motives" is normal in times of economic decline, the shift in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states came quickly. As exhibit 2.3 shows, by 1993, theft of private property had risen more than 13-fold from its 1972 level of 14,798 to 194,002; this figure reached 208,544 in 1995 before leveling out in 1998 at 184,760. At the same time, incidents of theft of state and collective property rose 9.4-fold, from 12,235 in 1972 to 115,987 in 1993, its peak before declining to 84,320 in 1998 (reflecting in part the progress of privatization). In addition, there is reason to suppose that the dark figure for these offenses was especially high: Police were at all times reluctant to record thefts that had no chance of solution, and the public, losing faith in law enforcement's capacity and willingness to investigate thefts, reported these occurrences with decreasing frequency.[14] Apartments and warehouses represented the most common locations for stealing, with thieves favoring jewelry, antiques, imported electronic goods, and hard currency. At the same time, the 1990s saw a revival of thefts of chickens and raids on vegetable gardens, acts reminiscent of the famine of 1947. Approximately half the thefts were committed by groups of offenders, often professional but not usually high-level units of organized crime. (The variety of organized groups will be discussed later in greater detail.) Not surprisingly, juveniles bore responsibility for more than 33 percent of thefts, and women committed 13 percent. More than 40 percent of apprehended thieves had criminal records, mostly for previous thefts.[15] A considerable proportion of thefts was committed by single, unemployed persons in their twenties, often without fixed addresses. In Russia such "floaters" were well represented among thieves and constituted one reason for the overuse of pretrial detention and consequent prison overcrowding. Additional research could determine whether Ukraine faced a similar problem. Despite the large amount of theft in Ukraine, there have been almost no studies about this type of crime.[16] Such studies would be helpful in learning about the roots of theft: for example, what portion reflected poverty or social strain, and what portion represented the work of professional criminals taking advantage of an underpoliced and undercontrolled environment. Violent crime Crimes of violence also experienced a surge from 1988 to 1995, though at a lesser rate than property crimes. As exhibit 2.4 shows, incidents of intentional assault rose from 4,241 in 1988 (versus 2,218 in 1972) to 8,800 in 1995. Incidents of robbery grew from 1,694 in 1988 (versus 834 in 1972) to 4,998 in 1994. Also, incidents of intentional murder rose from 2,016 in 1988 (versus 1,577 in 1972) to 4,896 in 1996. In contrast, incidents of rape (including attempted) reached a high point in 1989 at 2,736 (versus 1,564 in 1972), then declined to 1,334 in 1998. As a result, the percentage of rape convicts among the population of labor colonies declined from 9.8 percent in 1991 to 3.4 percent in 1998.[17] What accounts for the marked growth in recorded violent crime for this period? Although criminologists in Ukraine emphasize the novel aspects of the rise in murders, such as the presence of contract murders (210 in 1995) and the rise in the use of guns (from 15 to 16 percent of murders in the 1980s to 20 percent in 1993, with handguns replacing hunting weapons), the bulk of murders and the largest share of the increased number of murders remained impulse murders, committed among family, neighbors, and friends while under the influence of alcohol. In 1995, 62.2 percent of murders involved offender intoxication (virtually the same as in the 1960s); only 21 percent of victims were unknown to their assailant.[18] One may conclude, therefore, that the rise in murders (and also assaults) during the past decade reflected the stresses of unemployment and impoverishment and the accompanying increase in alcohol consumption far more than the growth of organized crime. The sharp decline in reported rapes during the 1990s deserves further exploration. To be sure, the inevitable reluctance of victims to make reports to the police ensures a high level of latency, and it was possible that, in the 1990s, the inexperienced and underequipped persons who filled the ranks of ordinary police officers had little sympathy with or respect for the claims of female victims. However, it is doubtful that changes in either police conduct or public attitudes toward the police could explain the drop in recorded rapes in 1998 to less than the 1972 level. In Russia there was also a decline in rape data between 1990 and 1998, but it was not as dramatic. Unfortunately, the criminological characteristics of reported rapes yield few clues. In 1995, 66 percent of attempted rapes in Ukraine were committed by persons 21 years of age and younger, approximately nearly 66 percent of offenders and 40 percent of the victims were intoxicated, and many of the incidents resulted from misunderstandings.[19] More sophisticated and focused research is needed on both the character and the processing of violent crimes against women. Specific offender groups: Women, juveniles, recidivists, and migrants The period from 1989 to 1999 also witnessed changes in the relative contribution to crime of four special groups of offenders. First, the share of reported crimes in Ukraine committed by women grew noticeably in the 1990s, rising from 13.6 percent in 1993 to 17.5 percent in 1996 (compared with 14.9 percent in Russia in 1995). However, in 1972, women represented 20.7 percent of offenders in Ukraine. To some extent, the share of crime committed by women is correlated with economic factors. For example, by 1980, the proportion of all crime committed by women had declined again to 15 percent; in 1985 and 1986 (years characterized by marked shortages in consumer goods), it rose sharply, to 22 and 26 percent, respectively, and it again rose in the mid-1990s (years characterized by hyperinflation). In the 1990s, women were involved mainly in crimes such as theft and cheating customers and suppliers, but, during the past 5 years, women were increasingly implicated in narcotics-related offenses and violent crimes, usually associated with alcohol use.[20] Second, the number of juveniles involved in criminal activity, as well as the number of young persons, ages 18 to 24, grew during the years 1979 to 1993 (the coefficients for juveniles more than doubled, and for young persons grew by 88.2 percent), while the coefficient for persons 25 years or older increased by 50 percent. Starting in 1993, however, the share of juveniles and young persons involved in criminal activity began to drop and that of older offenders began to rise, perhaps reflecting demographic factors. Although juveniles ages 14 to 17 represented 13 percent of identified offenders in Ukraine in 1993, that share had dropped to 8.6 percent by 1998. In Russia, the share of juvenile offenders also declined, falling from 17 percent in 1991 to 12 percent in 1995. Like juvenile delinquents everywhere, Ukrainian youth committed mainly thefts (from apartments or of automobiles), operated in groups (gangs), and were motivated more by a desire to achieve prestige among their peers than by mercenary considerations.[21] What may have distinguished young offenders in Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union generally, from their counterparts in the West was the likelihood that they would mature into adult offenders. This was because the proliferation of criminal groups, including those that were professional and organized, ensured opportunities for criminal careers, as organized crime actively recruits young criminals.[22] At the same time, the predominant moral code among young persons in the former Soviet Union emphasizes the pursuit of economic gain at any cost, and the heroes of youth are, if not organized crime members, at least the "new Ukrainians" or "new Russians"--most of whom are assumed to have made their fortunes through illicit means. It would be useful to determine whether an unusually large share of Ukrainian young offenders become adult criminals, possibly through a cohort study. Third, the recidivism rate of persons accused by the police (almost all of whom would be convicted) in Ukraine between 1990 and 1993 averaged 18 percent, approximately 3 to 4 percent below that recorded in Russia; this rate, however, fell during the mid-1990s to approximately 15 percent.[23] Women and civil servants convicted of job-related crimes committed new offenses much less frequently, while persons convicted of theft, swindling, and trade crimes reoffended more often than the gross averages. As of 1993, 30 percent of repeat offenders committed a new crime within 3 years of release from confinement; 66 percent committed one within 5 years. Every seventh recidivist had been convicted of three or more offenses, and the bulk of these persons had been designated by the court as especially dangerous recidivists. Receiving this designation for either convictions of two very dangerous crimes or two moderately serious crimes and one minor one (all according to a complicated formula) meant a loss of eligibility for early release and confinement in a "special regime" labor colony.[24] Fourth, another criminogenic group within the population of all post-Soviet countries is migrants. In Russia, the country with the largest migrant population, newcomers accounted for 8 percent of recorded crime in 1995; data for the city of Moscow place the amount of migrant crime at 33 percent. Although Ukraine does not receive as many migrants as Russia, it remains a recipient, with some of its southeastern regions receiving large numbers of newcomers. According to official data, in addition to legal refugees and resettlers, Ukraine in the 1990s received some 50,000 illegal migrants.[25] Research concerning the role of migrants in either criminal activity in general or in specific areas of crime, such as the shadow economy or illegal trade of narcotics or women, could produce valuable insights.[26] Explaining Patterns of Criminality In using available data, this overview analysis of ordinary crime in Ukraine has highlighted observable patterns and changes. It is also possible to consider theoretical perspectives that offer explanations at a higher level of analysis. One of the oldest and most commonsense perspectives was offered a century ago by Willem Bonger, who sought to demonstrate a correlation between poverty and criminal activity. Parts of the Ukrainian population are so poor that stealing is the only way to survive. Ironically, the original Soviet leaders, after coming to power, were ready to treat the commission of crimes out of need (iz-za nuzhdy) as a mitigating factor. Sympathy for the downtrodden has long since left the criminal codes of the former Soviet republics, but it may still be reflected in the practice of law enforcement.[27] Most present-day Ukrainian crime can be seen as a reaction to social strain. In his justly famous study of anomie, Robert K. Merton presented crime as a positive (innovative) response to increases in strain caused by the combination of relative deprivation, the permeation of society by a single set of values (materialism), and the uneven distribution of legitimate means of achieving them. Hence, strain causes anomie, which creates the need for a response. The alternatives to crime--namely immigration, resignation (such as alcoholism), or rebellion--Merton saw as having worse consequences for the society involved.[28] The late Soviet and post-Soviet experience, exemplified by Ukraine, included a remarkable combination of the circumstances that produce social strain. A sudden social differentiation emerged, in which a large part of the population became impoverished and earned a small fraction of the income earned by the wealthy. The society became enamored of the values of material accumulation, and very few (at least in public view) had access to legal ways of obtaining wealth.[29] In the U.S.S.R. there were also structured inequalities, although nowhere near as large or visible as those that emerged after its collapse. Both social strain and its potential effects were muted by three important factors: The presence of a welfare state (until the 1980s, at least the poorer parts of the population were protected by a safety net); opportunity for social mobility (the possibility to achieve success legally through obtaining higher education and resulting job tracks); and social control (the presence not only of police but also of strong families and community institutions supporting a system of morality that was generally accepted).[30] Since 1989, the welfare state all but vanished in Ukraine (as well as Russia); the easy paths to social mobility disappeared (only business pursuits seemed promising); and both policing and the system of "Communist morality" lost their effectiveness. Materialism supplanted any ideals or sense of what was right supplied by Communist morality. Advancing beyond the "strain" theory in an attempt to fathom the criminogenic state of contemporary Ukraine, Elliott Currie has proposed an amalgam called a "market society," which is likely to generate high levels of violent crime.[31] A market society is one in which the principles of the market are not confined only to some parts of the economy and are not "appropriately buffered and restrained by other social institutions and norms," but instead "come to suffuse the whole social fabric, and to undercut and overwhelm other principles that have historically sustained individuals, families, and communities." According to Currie, a market society contains at least seven criminogenic mechanisms: "the progressive destruction of livelihood; the growth of extremes of economic inequality and material deprivation; the withdrawal of public services and supports . . .; the erosion of informal and communal networks of . . . support . . .; the spread of a materialistic, neglectful, and 'hard' culture; the unregulated marketing of the technology of violence; and . . . the weakening of social and political alternatives." Currie's larger point is that the United States is the empirical referent for the construct of a Darwinian society, and that Western advisers and East European officials alike have erred in trying to bring precisely this kind of capitalism to the post-Communist world. Perhaps they had no choice, at least in countries of the former Soviet Union, where the welfare state had already decayed and productive forces were too weak to support revival, despite a flow of illegal financial gains from Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s that suggests otherwise. Avoidable or not, citizens of Ukraine and Russia were forced to "sink or swim" in a society that was arguably more Darwinian in nature than the United States, and this kind of society is bound to generate much crime, both property and violent. It may well be that post-Soviet countries have market societies and unregulated, oligopolistic forms of a market economy precisely because of the privatization of state resources, described by Steven Solnick as "stealing the state," which brought wealth to many former officials, criminal allies, and friends who remained in government.[32] The high rates of ordinary crime, including theft and murder, may be seen as a consequence of the creation of states dominated by the interests of a new class of entrepreneurs and predators, whose pursuit of profit entails another world of criminal activity-that of business and elite crime. Ukrainian crime in comparative context Understanding crime in Ukraine in a broader theoretical perspective is important to the development of a vibrant and autonomous criminology in that country (discussed in detail in chapter 4). But it is also important to place Ukrainian crime in an appropriate comparative context, and comparisons with Russia prove particularly insightful. Although the increase in criminal activity in late- and post-Soviet Ukraine was dramatic, the levels of recorded crime in Ukraine do not come close to those in the Russian Federation. In 1993, for example, while Ukraine recorded 1,032 crimes per 100,000 population (the crime coefficient), the Russian Federation recorded 1,890. The difference between the two countries was even greater for the population age 14 and older: 1,287 versus 2,344.[33] In addition, crime in Ukraine appears to be less violent and lethal than in Russia. Although Ukraine's coefficient of murder (reports of actual and attempted murders per 100,000 population) reached 9, the same level recorded by the United States in 1994, it lagged well behind Russia at 22.[34] These data reflect longstanding differences between the two republics: In 1972, Ukraine's crime coefficient was 283; in 1971, Russia's was 536. With republics such as Moldavia and Belorussia at each period having figures similar to Ukraine's, Russia was the anomaly.[35] But why? Why is there less recorded crime in Ukraine than in Russia? This is an intriguing research question for at least three reasons. First, both populations have similar age structures. In 1987, the last year for which comparable data exist, the share of the population in the most criminogenic age cohort (15 to 19) in both countries was 22 to 23 percent. Second, the economic consequences of transition are generally viewed to have been more severe in Ukraine than in Russia. Between 1991 and 1998, real GDP in Ukraine declined by a cumulative 63 percent compared with slightly more than 40 percent in Russia. Third, police practices in Russia and Ukraine--including the rules and habits for recording crime as well as their systems for administering criminal justice (discussed in chapter 3)-- remain remarkably similar today. In summation, the most convenient criminological explanations (demography, economics, law enforcement) do not help in understanding the large and longstanding differences in the levels of recorded crime in Russia and Ukraine. Another possible explanation of the disparate crime levels would be differences in levels of urbanization. The western regions of Ukraine (Zakarpatiia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Volynskaia, and Vinitskaia) are primarily rural and have always had the lowest coefficients of recorded crime (two-thirds lower than the coefficients recorded in the industrial east and lower than any rural region in Russia). Much higher levels of crime were found in the city of Kyiv, the Kharkiv region, and the Crimea (thought to have the worst crime problem in 1999); and the highest coefficients of crime were found in the eastern industrial regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Lugansk. However, these crime coefficients in 1993 reached only 60 percent of the levels recorded in the industrial regions of Russia, such as Sverdlovsk and Perm in the Urals.[36] Although levels of urbanization explain differences in crime between regions of Ukraine, they do not explain the systematic differences in levels of recorded crime between Ukraine and Russia. According to the 1989 census, Ukraine was no less urban than the Russian Federation (it was actually slightly more urbanized, with 67 percent of its population living in cities as opposed to 66 percent in Russia). Moreover, the Ukrainian industrial regions Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk had higher levels of urbanization (83 percent and 90 percent, respectively) than did the Russian regions of Sverdlovsk and Perm (77 percent and 87 percent). Nor did the age structure of the population explain the difference. In 1987, the share of the population between the ages of 15 and 29 (the most prone to crime) was 22.98 percent in Russia and 22.11 percent in Ukraine, with generally similar gender ratios.[37] The Russian Federation also had two criminogenic features largely lacking in Ukraine. The first was a substantial frontier area, most notably the Russian Far East, which had by far the highest crime rates in the entire former Soviet Union (FSU). The second was the huge number of transients not necessarily included in the population data. Even decades ago, a portion of crimes committed in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) were the work of persons from other parts of the U.S.S.R. After the breakup, Russia received millions of refugees, resettlers, and "visitors" from various parts of the FSU as well as from other countries. Many criminals apprehended for Russian crimes fell into these categories.[38] Further research is required to know whether this is an adequate explanation of the crime gap between Ukraine and Russia. Indeed, there is much room for more comparative research on crime rates in the former Soviet Union. Studies of border regions in Ukraine and Russia (such as Donetsk and Rostov, or Belgorod and Kharkiv), or even Ukraine and Poland, would be particularly good devices for elucidating regional variations and their causes. Such focused research, in which the variations in law enforcement regimes--factors that typically haunt comparative criminology--are minimal, could help solve the puzzle in crime rate differentials.[39] Business Crime and Crime in the Economy When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in December 1991, the state-administered economies of its republics, including Ukraine, were already in the process of disintegration. Each successor state displayed its own particular blend of asset takeover by private entities and depression of the state sector economic activity by shadow economy competitors. Even before Ukraine became independent, criminals had a major effect on the economy; after the collapse, connections among new entrepreneurs (many of them former officials), corrupt government officials, and criminals began to flourish.[40] To understand organized crime and corruption in post-Soviet Ukraine, it is necessary to understand the shadow economy. This section begins with a history of the shadow economy and privatization during the late Soviet years and in post-Soviet Ukraine, and then moves to an analysis of organized crime and patterns of corruption in independent Ukraine. The long shadow of economic crime Even in the Stalin period, the rigid formalities of Soviet economic planning were matched by informal reliance of managers on their personal connections, supply agents to gather inputs, and the extralegal manufacture of and trade in spare parts. To move further, and trade or sell additional supplementary production outside of the plan to other firms, was a natural concomitant. After Stalin's death, as the economic effects of World War II receded, there developed in the U.S.S.R. a demand for consumer goods that was not met by the state sector. By the 1960s, a parallel market began to emerge. The supply of goods for this market came from a variety of sources, but at its core lay illegal production undertaken mainly by the managers of state enterprises. This activity involved a series of criminal offenses, starting with the misappropriation of state assets (supplies and production process) and extending to payment of bribes to superior officials and control agencies and, eventually, protection money to criminal elements who demanded a piece of the action. During the Brezhnev years (1964-82), the shadow economy (known also as the second or parallel economy) grew to the point where it represented, by conservative estimate, 15 percent of the country's GDP.[41] The economic restructuring during the Gorbachev period led quickly to both an expansion of the shadow economy and criminalization of the economy in general. The first law on cooperatives permitting private, or cooperative, businesses (February 1987) made possible the legalization of previously illegal businesses. At the same time, the laws allowed a variety of officials the discretion to vet and destroy the new firms, providing an ideal opportunity for bribes. Quickly, local government officials recognized that they could force owners of successful businesses to make them coowners. Simultaneously, in 1987, managers of large enterprises gained unprecedented authority to control the production and distribution processes, especially the prices charged. When the second law of cooperatives (May 1988) allowed managers of large state-owned enterprises to create spinoff firms, they responded by privatizing the best of their firms' assets and selling production at inflated prices. Naturally, these managers needed capital to purchase parts of their firms, and the most available partners were persons who had amassed fortunes in the second economy. This included criminals who, from 1986 to 1988, had taken advantage of the restriction on state production of alcoholic beverages to develop a staggeringly profitable underground business.[42] By 1989, it had become so profitable to sell goods in the shadow economy that managers of many more firms diverted production, and the shelves of state-owned stores stood bare. As the leaders of the U.S.S.R. lost control of the levers of the economy, they produced more legislation that enabled officials to acquire state assets in legal ways. One of the most important was the 1990 Law on Small Enterprises, which created an easy method for the purchase of the most valuable parts of state firms at low prices, and facilitated what Western observers called spontaneous privatization. That process was further aided by legal entities known as kontserny, which allowed the acquisition and quasi-privatization of even whole ministries.[43] Also in 1990 and 1991, opportunities for a variety of criminal activities expanded, including using primary businesses to sell illegal goods (such as arms and narcotics), and preying on the successes of others (extortion and protection rackets). The growth of private and quasi-private business-legal, illegal, or in between-also engendered the development of financial institutions, some closely tied to capital with criminal origins. This political economy gave rise to the now familiar partnerships involving entrepreneurs (including some industrial officials and the "Young Turks" of the Komsomol, or League of Young Communists), criminal organizations (in part staffed by former security police officials), and officials who remained in government. It is these triads, referred to by Louise Shelley as the "criminal-political nexus," that most Ukrainians and Russians understand as the "Mafia."[44] Both the shadow economy and the business-crime connection have continued and expanded in the post-Soviet space.[45] Although Russia has encouraged further privatization of state assets (including less profitable ones), Ukraine has moved more slowly, promoting mainly the privatization of small and local business. At the same time, many of the goods purchased by the public are imported, and the trading organizations have strong criminal connections, especially along the borders. Also, while Russia has engaged in a significant amount of legal and judicial reform, Ukraine has done little. However, the relative inactivity of the Ukrainian state may mean little: so far, the Russian effort has had little impact on organized crime or corruption. By all accounts, the shadow economies of most post-Soviet countries expanded after independence; in the case of Ukraine, it grew to 48 percent of GDP according to one 1994 estimate.[46] One reason is the attempt by the new government to extract taxes from private firms. In Ukraine, as in Russia, the various levels of government produced a tax burden for business that was confiscatory and, when combined with obligatory payments for protection (krysha, or a roof), inconsistent with the survival of firms, let alone profit. As a result, most firms in Ukraine keep part of their business outside their official books, including payments to employees (working on the side) and income. Further complicating attempts to sort out taxes is the large role of barter, even within the state sector, which makes it difficult to determine incomes and profits.[47] The reality is that the shadow economy and the official economy are intertwined: the same firms operate in both legitimate and illegitimate worlds. The shadow economy is, in short, "an organically connected structural part of the legal economy."[48] President Kuchma reportedly put it more bluntly, claiming that "literally all spheres [of the economy] are criminalized and shadowized."[49] The growth of the shadow economy in Ukraine is a symptom of the government's loss of the capacity both to regulate the economy and to raise taxes, and it demonstrates a systemic weakness of the Ukrainian state to perform its basic functions. This vacuum of power and authority, in turn, creates opportunities for criminal groups with various degrees of organization, and encourages government officials to place private interests ahead of serving the public interest. This symbiosis of corruption and organized crime is described in the following section, and it is as difficult for scholars to disentangle and analyze as it is for the state to disrupt. Organized Crime and Corruption Any discussion of organized crime in post-Soviet states must start with terminology, for neither "Mafia" nor "organized crime" is used consistently.[50] The word "Mafia" is confusing because popularly it refers to the entire web of persons who profit from the new economic order--entrepreneurs, corrupt officials, and criminals (acting individually or in concert)--while professionals usually reserve the term for organized groups with the highest degree of internal structure and discipline, something akin to that found in the Sicilian Mafia. Moreover, the term "organized crime" has multiple meanings. Although some criminologists in the FSU reserve this term for groups of criminals that resemble Western Mafia organizations, both police ministries and other criminologists prefer a broad rendering of the term, to include any and all groups that commit crimes together.[51] Just as Stalin saw danger in any gathering of three or even two persons to plan a crime, so latter-day authorities find it convenient to treat all criminal groups as "organized." What exactly is organized crime? This indiscriminate treatment of all groups as organized causes confusion about the scope and meaning of organized crime. For example, according to police data, there has been virtually uncontrolled growth in the amount of organized crime in the former Soviet Union. As exhibit 2.5 shows, in Ukraine in 1991, the police recorded 260 organized criminal groups (organizovannykh prestupnykh gruppirovok). By 1998, Ukraine reportedly had 1,157 such groups, which were responsible for more than 9,000 crimes.[52] In Russia in 1991, there were 952 organized criminal groups, but by 1997 there were more than 12,500 such groups, which were responsible for some 25,000 crimes.[53] These data lead to a number of troubling inferences. For example, it would appear that organized crime in Ukraine is much more dangerous than in Russia, for its groups are either larger or more organized. Although Russia has nearly 10 times the number of groups as Ukraine, far fewer offenses per group are committed there. While Russian organized crime groups commit 2 to 3 offenses each, Ukrainian organized crime groups are responsible for between 7 and 10 offenses each. The data also appear to suggest that the "cancer" of organized crime has metastasized much faster in Russia than in Ukraine. In 9 years, the number of groups in Russia grew by 1,000 percent; in Ukraine, the rate of growth was half that. However, to make any inferences based on these official data is exceedingly risky. The numbers recorded here are the product of an amalgam of police reporting and investigation statistics wholly unrelated to proper criminological or legal categories. With the number of groups, for example, comes the concept of exposure (vyiavlenie), which denotes that the police suspect the groups to have been responsible for the crimes reported. The number of "offenses," too, comes from police investigations, not prosecution charges or court convictions.[54] They are, as one Western criminologist would warn, "the product, not of a neutral fact-finding process, but of a record-keeping process which is geared first and foremost to organizational (primarily police) aims and needs."[55] The police data on organized crime are not without merit, however. A closer look at the numbers and, in particular, at the kinds of offenses committed by groups suggests that most groups involved consist of small gangs of extortionists, thieves, swindlers, or narcotics traders--that is, anything but serious criminal cartels with international or interregional ties.[56] In Ukraine, for example, simple theft (kradizhka) made up nearly 50 percent of the offenses committed by organized groups.[57] In Russia, according to Viktor Luneev, approximately 40 percent of the offenses committed by organized groups consisted of theft (krazha), and fully 80 percent consisted of what most criminologists would label ordinary criminal conduct.[58] Examined from this perspective, the data suggest that there may be a fairly short continuum between ordinary and organized crime in Ukraine. One leading Ukrainian criminologist supports this indiscriminate approach to analyzing organized crime precisely because the smaller and less sophisticated groups commit a large portion of the crimes that can be uncovered. He finds wisdom in the observation of a popular Soviet (now Russian) chronicler of organized crime, Stanislav Govorukhin, that "one should not exaggerate the degree of order and organization in the criminal world, since we have no order anywhere."[59] Although there is a large kernel of truth in this claim, this rough approach to criminological classification has at least three shortcomings. First, it inhibits the development of policy-specific knowledge. It is difficult to discern from the aggregate data which groups commit which offenses and, thus, it is not clear how best to direct the attention of law enforcement agencies. Second, the blanket approach to organized crime groups impedes an understanding of the continuum between ordinary and organized crime. Observers need to know much more about the relationships between the groups, especially whether smaller gangs are employed or periodically surrendered to the police by larger, better organized groups. Finally, the indiscriminate treatment of all groups as organized crime obscures one of the most important and yet poorly understood aspects of organized crime: the structure of relations within groups. There are likely important differences in the nature and evolution of authority and hierarchy both within and among groups. More discriminating analyses and suppler categories are needed to understand this variation.[60] There are two options for better organizing available information about Ukrainian organized crime, each represented by two different approaches to classification in post-Soviet criminology. One method is to classify groups by the nature of offenses they commit; the other is to sort groups by the nature of their organization. In both Ukraine and Russia, the latter approach is dominant and clearly favored by a younger generation of criminologists.[61] Contemporary criminology in Ukraine and Russia makes organization the sine qua non of organized crime. Most scholars in Ukraine and Russia distinguish three levels of organized criminal groups. First, a base level, comprising the majority of gangs of extortionists, thieves, swindlers, and narcotics traders, shows the rudimentary and episodic nature of organization involved, and is akin to that found in gangs, which are typically called groups (gruppirovki). Second, the middle level involves relatively large formations with connections to authorities at the regional level. This level is often called a criminal organization (prestupnaia organizatsiia). Third, the high level has influence extending to multiple regions of the country, often with international ties and possessing means to launder money. This latter type is most often called a network or association (soobshchestvo).[62] Distinguishing these groups is helpful. We can see, for example, that few criminal groups are in the high-level category. A recent study of Russian organized crime concluded that there were only 350 authentic organized criminal groups in the Western understanding of the term and, of these, between 12 and 20 might be classified as major cartels.[63] This may be true for Ukraine as well. According to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs about groups exposed in 1997, only 3 percent had international ties, 6 percent had interregional ties within the FSU, and 20 percent had interregional ties within Ukraine.[64] However, the state of publicly available information about and analysis of the various kinds of criminal groups in Ukraine remains weak. In particular, serious study of the activities pursued by these various groups is sorely needed.[65] A good deal could be learned about the nature and activities of base- and even middle-level groups from studying groups that have been exposed and prosecuted. The higher level groups involved in international trade likely require some kind of ethnographic study, however dangerous. Particularly useful would be studies that focus not on particular crimes (for example, the number of persons apprehended and charged), but on business activities of organized criminal groups in particular sectors. Thus, one could imagine special studies of the role of organized crime in Ukraine in organized prostitution; the narcotics trade; the theft and sale of automobiles (luxury cars stolen in Europe and sold in the former Soviet Union) and weapons; the acquisition and trade of antiques, jewelry, and rare books; and banks and credit. Another area for investigation is the system of "roofs" and the division of labor in protection (extortion and rackets) between private security firms and public bodies, including various police forces.[66] Finally, there is a deficit of research into regional differences in the incidence of organized crime and of the relations between region-specific groups. This sector-specific mapping of organized crime or functionalist approach to criminological analysis requires more empirical information than we now possess. For many of these topics, bits of relevant data can be reported, but, as a rule, this information raises more questions than it answers. Here we present material on activities in Ukraine that are typical of organized crime anywhere (prostitution, narcotics) and especially activities characteristic of the FSU (extortion, financial sector activities). This will begin to create a profile of organized crime in Ukraine and will represent a first step toward understanding whether, and how, organized crime in Ukraine is unique. Due to the desperate state of the economy in the 1990s, Ukraine (and to a lesser extent Russia) became a center of pornography and prostitution for international consumption. According to an official report written in 1999, more than 400,000 Ukrainian women under the age of 30 had left the country, most to work in this field. According to the Ukrainian consulate in Greece, 3,000 Ukrainians work as prostitutes in Athens and Thessaloniki alone, and 6,000 more do the same in Turkey. A Dutch researcher has reported that approximately 8,000 Ukrainian women work as prostitutes in the Netherlands. It is unclear how many of these women came to this work knowingly and voluntarily; better educated than prostitutes from other countries, many of those from Ukraine and Russia were initially promised clerical or hotel positions. Typically, women who thought they were traveling voluntarily were later forced into prostitution when their benefactors took away their passports and confined them. In this way, Ukrainian women have joined those from other poor countries as victims of the multibillion-dollar business of trafficking.[67] Another growth industry for Ukrainian organized crime is the trade and sale of narcotics. The growth in the amount of narcotics-related crime known to the police has been remarkable: From 1988 to 1998, the number of violations rose more than 16-fold, reaching 39,800 offenses or nearly 7 percent of all recorded crimes. These data do not include approximately 26,000 rural residents who were fined for the administrative infraction of illegally planting poppies.[68] Not only does Ukraine constitute a link in the transportation of drugs from Asia to Europe, but local demand for drugs is rapidly growing. According to sociologists at the Ministry of Internal Affairs University in Kharkiv who surveyed a sample of young people in that city in 1995 and again in 1997, there was a substantial increase in the number of respondents who had used narcotics at least once (from 22 percent to 34.6 percent). The researchers uncovered an emerging subculture of narcotics use among Ukrainian youth, one that included women as well as men.[69] In addition to playing a primary role in illegal business activities, organized criminal groups in Ukraine were involved, through private security and financial institutions, in the activities of a broad range of businesses. As a rule, most protection arrangements do not come to the attention of the police but, in the mid- and late 1990s, approximately 3,000 cases were registered each year. Of these, fully one-seventh were determined to be the work of organized criminal groups. According to an official report, the protection rackets were especially prominent in the industrial cities of eastern Ukraine, as well as in the Crimea and Lviv. In addition to extracting the usual tribute in exchange for protection from other predatory groups, organized criminal groups extracted further impositions at the sales level. Fully in control of the private and, to a large extent, state trade networks, criminal groups imposed a tax built into the price of goods ranging from 20 percent to 30 percent of the final price. In other words, criminal groups in Ukraine imposed their own value-added tax in addition to whatever the state could extract.[70] Another major area of group criminal activity in Ukraine in the 1990s was in the financial-credit system. It is important to stress that as in other post-Soviet countries, the financial-banking sector in Ukraine was underregulated and open to all kinds of abuses. A wide variety of offenses were becoming commonplace, ranging from counterfeiting of money, bills of sale, bank guarantees, and other documents to bribes to obtain credit, to helping clients avoid taxes and hide income, to fictitious operations and various forms of state money swindles. Sometimes, criminals paid to obtain confidential financial information that they could then use for extortion. Financial swindles, banking crimes, and counterfeiting all increased substantially in the late 1990s, as did money laundering. Some of these offenses were committed with the use of electronic banking and communications systems, but this mechanism for fraud awaits study.[71] Finally, terrorist activity, though a distinct phenomenon that included political acts of violence unrelated to organized crime, also involved organized crime. A major study of terrorism in Ukraine concluded that organized crime groups were responsible for most explosions of buildings. In 1995 and 1996, there were 560 such incidents, in which 90 people died. A small part of the destruction was political, caused by Kurdish groups.[72] Corruption: Its character and causes An element closely related to the shadow economy and a potent factor in organized crime was the corruption of state officials, who served as key players in these larger enterprises. Labeling particular actions and persons corrupt includes the danger of imposing norms and values not shared by most of those involved.[73] Ukraine was never governed by the legal rationality associated with Weberian bureaucracy, and much of what outsiders call corruption reflected traditional exchange relationships. At the same time, though, post-Soviet Ukraine has seen both an increase and a systematization of the pursuit of private gain among public officials that has major costs for ordinary citizens. Although corruption is criminogenic in the sense that it embodies violations of criminal law, enforcement of that law can have only limited impact on the nature and scope of corrupt activity; all too often, attacks on corruption turn out to be political instruments used by one faction against another.[74] Daniel Kaufmann and Paul Siegelbaum see corruption as "the abuse of official power for private gain," and see this definition as embracing both the misappropriation of state wealth and the extraction of rents from private entities. The rents may take the form of bribes or favors of any kind, and the action performed in exchange may be not only legal but also required as fulfillment of an official duty.[75] The practice of corruption by government officials in Ukraine reflects more than the opportunities provided by privatization and the collapse of Government and Communist Party supervision. It also reflects the traditional patterns of exchange relations that predominated under the czars and continued in Soviet times, as well as the florescence of clientelism that accompanied the growth of the shadow economy beginning in the 1960s. In the 1920s, Soviet authorities launched a major campaign against bribetaking by officials, but they eventually lost that battle. The Soviet system became increasingly feudal, in both the relationships among political bosses at different levels of the hierarchy and the relationship between the public and anyone who had authority or access to goods. Petty corruption, in the form of extra payments for scarce goods or favors, was ubiquitous, as was the habit of paying tribute to persons who could possibly help or harm an individual.[76] The growth of the shadow economy made these phenomena all the more systematic and gave higher placed officials, even members of the Politburo and Government, opportunities to take advantage of their networks. Starting in the late 1980s, the collapse of state authority and the privatization of state assets produced both a further expansion of corrupt activity by Government officials and changes in its forms. It became easier for officials to misappropriate Government assets, for example, and new criminal opportunities appeared in the realm of financial transactions. On a larger plane, officials in late Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian Government--largely the same persons throughout--gained more opportunities for personal enrichment and faced fewer constraints in acting on them. Opportunities came not only through the privatization process but also through an increase in bureaucratic discretion accompanied by the disappearance of any and all forms of accountability. As before, most legislation consisted of "frame laws," which failed to supply the details needed for application and left crucial specifications to bureaucratic regulations. At the same time, the quick issuance of a stream of new Presidential edicts, Government resolutions, and laws, and their implementing regulations assured both legal ambiguity and a new scope for bureaucratic discretion.[77] As they gained more power, public officials in Ukraine became less accountable. The Soviet system depended on multiple channels of monitoring bureaucratic behavior, especially supervision by party officials and financial agencies. In Ukraine, both of these lines of accountability broke down and were not replaced by any real system of legislative supervision. Vertical superiors in the government, including staff of the Cabinet of Ministers, might hold lower officials accountable, but typically the former were drawn into the same networks of clientelism as their subordinates. Finally, whatever past inhibitions had been created by ethical or moral considerations largely disappeared in the immediate post-Soviet years, as public officials faced a sharp gap between the capacity to meet their needs and the income they obtained legally; they also shared a strong sense that everyone, including their bosses, used public office for private gain. In fact, not only officials but also politicians, such as deputies to the Supreme Rada and lower legislatures, were also reputed to take part in this process.[78] In short, both private payment of officials to perform their duties and the favoring of persons who were part of the same network constituted the "rules of the game" in most post-Soviet countries, including Ukraine. As some perspicacious analysts of the Soviet order had predicted (Barrington Moore and Kenneth Jowitt), traditional forms of social relations came back with a vengeance.[79] To say that corruption became normal, however, is not to denigrate its costs. Corruption does matter, and it has a wide variety of potentially deleterious effects. Corruption diverts resources from the achievement of public goals, weakens the positive effects of market mechanisms, increases social inequality, discredits law as an instrument of public regulation, strengthens the hold of oligarchic cliques in government, weakens faith in public authority, increases alienation and social tension, and erodes political stability.[80] Not all of these were present in Ukraine during the 1990s, but all had the potential to be. The prosecution of Government officials for corruption-related offenses, such as bribery, usually reflects not only the extent of the phenomenon but also patterns of policing and politics. Proving bribery is notoriously difficult, and in the U.S.S.R. most instances registered with the police did not lead to prosecutions. Also, for any official of importance, screening by party authorities assured that only those out of favor with their superiors would face court.[81] All the same, bribery convictions increased in the post-Stalin period from 1,800 in 1957 to 3,000 in 1970 to 6,000 in 1980.[82] Since 1986, however, the conviction rates have dropped precipitously: In Russia, from 3,454 (1986) to 2,008 (1987) to 812 (1988) to 441 (1989); and in Ukraine, from 1,895 (1986) to 1,473 (1987) to 1,100 (1988) to 1,049 (1989). From 1990 to 1998, the incidents of alleged bribery recorded by the police in both countries rose 2.5 times to 5,807 in Russia and 2,449 in Ukraine. In Russia, the rate of conviction stayed low (in 1997, 1,381 out of 5,624 registered offenses); in Ukraine, however, successful prosecutions were far more common, with convictions in 1,641 of 2,449 registered offenses in 1998.[83] This may have reflected a tendency in Ukraine to prosecute mainly low-level officials, a tendency easily observed in the enforcement of the Ukraine's 1995 Law on the Struggle Against Corruption (henceforth, corruption law). Beyond attempts to expose bribetaking and misappropriation of funds, a classic way to reduce corruption is to introduce regulations on conflict of interest and disclosure of income. The government of Ukraine succeeded not only in drafting a law introducing such rules but also in getting it approved. (In Russia, a comparable law has been repeatedly blocked, most recently by the President.) The 1995 corruption law established administrative, not criminal, responsibility; however, violations of the new rules and regulations could lead to heavy fines and loss of employment. Interestingly, the new rules applied not only to civil servants but also to members of parliaments and councils. However, members of the Rada and the regional legislatures had immunity from criminal prosecution. As might be anticipated, prosecutions for violations of the corruption law were directed mainly at lower level officials (categories 5 to 7) and deputies in rural and village councils. In 1997 and 1998, nearly 100 top-level officials and approximately 235 policemen were convicted of offenses such as failing to declare income, doing business related to one's position, and receiving material benefits or other advantages in connection with their work performance, including access to goods or services at a discount-actions similar to bribetaking. Those convicted received fines but rarely were fired.[84] Chapter 3 discusses how police and Procuracy officials implemented the corruption law. Both the rates of criminal convictions and the passage and enforcement of the corruption law suggest that political forces in Ukraine found it advantageous to pursue corruption, at least at lower societal levels. Moreover, in 1997 and 1998, the Government sponsored an anticorruption campaign known as Clean Hands, established a coordinating committee on corruption, and developed a planning document known as the Conception on the Fight Against Corruption for 1998-2005.[85] Various surveys, including a World Bank study of small business, suggest that Ukraine has an especially high degree of corruption; a locally generated report estimates that 40 percent of enterprises and 90 percent of commercial structures have corrupt relationships and that 60 percent of the income of government officials comes from bribes.[86] Is Ukraine's situation actually worse than Russia's? There is really no way to know. A national poll conducted in late 1998 in the Russian Federation found that only 36 percent of adults had never given a bribe to an official and that 27 percent did so regularly; 36 percent had done so more than once, and 5 percent had done so only once.[87] A recent survey of public attitudes toward corruption revealed that the populations of Hungary and Russia did not perceive it to be a major problem, but those in Bulgaria and Poland did. These public feelings "seem unrelated to the 'unknown' level of real corrupt practices."[88] Despite the difficulties in this kind of research, it is worth discovering whether the levels of perceived and reported corruption in Ukraine are in any way correlated. The corruption-organized crime connection in context Whereas in an earlier era there was a tendency to treat corruption as a consequence of moral degradation, the current explanation views corruption in terms of economics and market disequilibrium. Corruption is seen as a rational response to distorted markets and the structure of incentives. Especially in underdeveloped economies, corruption is a form of protectionism, either as a response to or a cause of market uncompetitiveness.[89] As this discussion has shown, however, it is not useful to reduce corruption and organized crime to mere economic epiphenomena. The links between corruption and organized crime and the evolution of new state and social structures are too deep to be ignored. To make sense of the flourishing of corruption, the shadow economy, and organized crime in post-Communist countries, sociologists from the East and West have turned to theories of social networks and clientelism.[90] Endre Sik and Barry Wellman argue on the basis of Hungarian experience that the use of personal connections, or network capital, was more prevalent under Communism in Eastern Europe than in the capitalist West and became even more widespread in post-Communist conditions. Their nuanced and well-illustrated analysis treats these patterns of conduct not as a form of deviance but as normal and understandable consequences of particular social conditions. In a study of crime in the Czech Republic, John Hagan and Detelina Radoeva explicitly connect crime and corruption with extreme differentiation in the possession of and opportunities to use social capital. They found that high levels of trust often lead to corruption and corporate crime, while low levels of trust disconnect others from society and lead to street crime. Finally, Andras Sajo has produced a most penetrating and pessimistic analysis that treats individual acts of corruption in post-Communist countries as part of a powerful and real form of social organization, or clientelism. To Sajo, the conduct of public officials and businessmen is not a product of any moral deficit but, rather, a consequence of a structure of opportunity, in which there is no viable alternative to clientelist relations. In fact, Sajo warns us that no confrontation with corruption, including conflict-of-interest rules, can have any teeth and serve more than a public relations function, as long as clientelist dependencies predominate, private property is not well demarcated and protected, and there are no guaranteed salaries to safeguard personal autonomy. Conclusions After reviewing the dramatic changes that occurred in the quantity and quality of crime in Ukraine during the past 12 years, we reach mixed conclusions. On the one hand, the growth of ordinary crime (violent and especially property) represents both a natural catching up with countries of the West (although Ukraine still has a long way to go) and a normal response to social disorganization, increased social differentiation, and social strain. If anything, crime rates should have risen even more than official statistics indicate, and it may well be that the dark figure (latent crime) is unusually high, as some Ukrainian criminologists believe. On the other hand, the criminalization of the economy through the expansion of the shadow economy, the role of organized crime, and the corruption of state officials represents a more serious condition for the future of the Ukrainian economy and politics. Although the high rates of ordinary crime might well level off and even decrease, should Ukraine develop a prosperous economy and effective government, the domination of the economy by the political-criminal nexus may be more difficult to reverse. Some observers see this as part of a transition, but others correctly view the business-crime problem as endemic to post-Communism, just as corruption was to late Communism. There may be entry points in what seems to be a vicious circle. One is to study and find ways of developing accountability among government officials and separating them from the criminal world. (This would require positive as well as negative incentives and, therefore, cost money.) Another, more controversial, approach is to encourage criminal elements to launder money by investing in legitimate business, but only in the context of an effective regulatory framework. In fact, it is hard to imagine the development of a prosperous economy in Ukraine without major reinvestment in the country of profits that have been removed from the country. (It would be useful to have studies of capital flows and identification of any returning capital, however small.) Serious, long-term investment in Ukraine will not take place until a system of true private property is developed, with appropriate legal protections, but thus far the elites benefit more from ownership ambiguity. In short, any serious attempts to remedy either of the two crime problems identified depend upon larger changes in the economy, polity, and society. And serious study of crime in Ukraine must relate it to the larger context in all its complexity. --------------------------- Notes 1. Kulik, A.G., and B.I. Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," Prestupnost v Ukraine (Biulleten zakonodavstva i iuridichnoi prakitiki Ukraini), no. 2 (1994): 5-37; "Prilozhenie," Prestupnost v Ukraine, no. 2 (1994): 134-186; and "Osnovnye tendentsii prestupnosti i sudimosti v Ukraine v 1994-1998 gg.," with attached tables, unpublished 1999. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to statistical data on crime in Ukraine are drawn from these data. 2. See, for example, Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," 7-8 (see note 1). 3. Prestupnost i pravonarusheniia, 1991-1995: Statisticheskii sbornik, Moscow: MVD, MIu, Mezhgosudarstvennyi statisticheskii komitet SNG, 1996: 12-13, 21. 4. Shelley, Louise I., "Organized Crime and Corruption in Ukraine: Impediments to the Development of a Free Market Economy," Demokratizatsiya 6 (4) (Fall 1998): 649, citing a 1997 study of the Ukrainian National Integrity Survey; Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," 7 (see note 1); Zelinskii, A.F., Kriminologiia: kurs lektsii, Kharkov: Prapor, 1996: 29, 35. 5. For details, see Solomon, Peter H., Jr., "Criminalization and Decriminalization in Soviet Criminal Policy, 1917-1941," Law and Society Review 16 (1) (1981): 9-44; and Solomon, Peter H., Jr., Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996: chapter 12. 6. Solomon, Peter H., Jr., Soviet Criminologists and Criminal Policy: Specialists in Policy-Making, New York: Columbia University Press, 1978: chapter 5. 7. From August 1940 until the 1950s, conviction for the crime "petty theft from an enterprise" brought mandatory imprisonment of 1 year. Not wanting to lose productive workers who pilfered, factory managers often issued warnings or reprimands rather than reporting offenders to the police. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 327-30 (see note 5). 8. Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice, 327-30, 435-6 (see note 5). 9. On the involvement of the public in the shadow economy, see Simis, Konstantin. U.S.S.R.: The Corrupt Society, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982; and Shtromas, Alexander, Political Change and Social Development: The Case of the Soviet Union, Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishing, 1980: 67-81. 10. Solomon, Peter H., Jr., "Reforming Criminal Law Under Gorbachev: Crime, Punishment, and the Rights of the Accused," in Toward the "Rule of Law" in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period, ed. Donald Barry, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992: esp. 246-50. 11. According to a well-informed analyst, apart from 1997, there were no drops in the level of signals about crimes provided by the Ukrainian public and there were signs of increasing use of administrative offenses. See "Osnovnye tendentsii," 2 (see note 1). In Russia, an analogous leveling and drop in recorded offenses took place a few years earlier and was produced mainly, according to V.V. Luneev (a top criminologist), by police omitting to record hard cases. Luneev, V.V., "Kontrol nad prestupnostiu: nadezhny li pokazateli?" Gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 7 (1995): 89-96. 12. Udovenko, Genady, interview in Golos Ukrainy, September 7, 1999, 2. 13. Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," 13 (see note 1). 14. On public attitudes toward the police in Ukraine, see Kulik, A.G., "Otnoshenie naseleniia k militsii," Prestupnost v Ukraine, no. 2 (1994): 65-79. 15. Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 170-81 (see note 4); Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," 13-16 (see note 1). 16. A recent bibliography of publications by Ukrainian criminologists lists no published studies of theft and only two dissertations: one on "the prevention by police of theft of private property on railroads" and the other on "the prevention of open theft and robberies of state property." It is unclear whether either includes a major empirical component. "Bibliografiia rabot ukrainskikh kriminologov, opublikovannykh v 1992-1998 gg.," unpublished, 1999. 17. "Otchet po rezultatam issledovaniia po teme 'retsidivnaia' prestupnost v sovremennykh usloviiakh i meropriiatiia ee preduprezhdeniia," unpublished, 1999: 12. 18. Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 212-18 (see note 4); Mikhailov, A.E., Nekorystnaia nasilstvennaia prestupnost i ee preduprezhdenie, Kyiv: 1997: 12-24. 19. Dolgova, A.I., ed., Prestupnost, statistika, zakon, Moscow: Itrinologicheskaia assosiatsiia 1997: 215; Sostoianie prestupnosti v Rossii za ianvar-dekabr 1998 goda. Moscow: MVD, 1999; Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 218-21 (see note 4). 20. Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," 22-24 (see note 1). 21. Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 244-57 (see note 4). 22. "Sostoianie borby s organizovannoi prestupnostiu v Ukraine" (informatsionnaia spravka), unpublished, 1999: 8. 23. The term "rate of recidivism" refers to the share of persons who have committed crimes while also having previous convictions of any criminal offense remaining on their records. (The Soviet republics' criminal codes provided for the expiry of a conviction record after an established time period without a new offense.) For details on the calculation of recidivism, see Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 234-6 (see note 4). 24. Ibid., 231-43; "Otchet po rezultatam issledovaniia po teme 'retsidivnaia prestupnost . . ." Note that the term "especially dangerous recidivist" was similar to the "three strikes and you're out" laws in the United States. A relatively trivial offense could and did lead to serious consequences for offenders that bore no reasonable connection either to their rehabilitation or just punishment. 25. Dolgova, A.I., Kriminologiia: Uchebnik dlia iuridicheskikh vuzov, Moscow: InfraM-Norma, 1997: 708-725; "Primernaia tematika sovmestnykh ukrainsko-amerikanskikh kriminologicheskikh issledovaniia (predlozheniia nauchno-issledovatelskogo insitututa Nationalnoi akademii vnutrennykh del Ukrainy)," unpublished, 1999: 7. 26. See, for example, Stoecker, Sally, "The Rise in Human Trafficking and Role of Organized Crime," unpublished paper, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, American University. 27. Bonger, Willem, Criminality and Economic Conditions, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1916; Solomon, Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin: 33-4 (see note 5). 28. Merton, Robert K., "Social Structure and Anomie," (1938) in Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: Free Press, 1957: 131-60. See Savelsverg, Joachim J., "Crime, Inequality, and Justice in Eastern Europe: Anomie, Domination, and Revolutionary Change," Crime and Inequality, ed. John Hagan and Ruth Petersen, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995: 206-24. 29. For data on social stratification, see D'Anieri, Paul, Robert Kravchuk, and Taras Kuzio, Politics and Society in Ukraine, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999: 166-205. 30. The classic research on the importance of the spectrum of social control for comparative crime rates is Adler, Freda, Nations Not Obsessed With Crime, Littleton, CO: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 1983. The Russian criminologist Viktor Luneev cites Adler with approval and argues that it was the effective web of social control for much of the Soviet period that kept crime rates in the U.S.S.R. low. Luneev, V.V., "Prestupnost v Rossii pri perekhode ot sotsializma k kapitalizmu," Godusdarstvo i Pravo, no. 5 (1998): 45-58. 31. Currie, Elliott, "Market, Crime and Community: Toward a Mid-Range Theory of Post-Industrial Violence," in The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice, ed. Lawrence M. Friedman and George Fisher, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press 1997: 17-44; quoted text at 24-5. 32. Solnick, Steven, Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. 33. Prestupnost i pravonarusheniia, 1991-1995, 20, 21 (see note 3). 34. Kudriavtsev, V.N., and A.V. Naumov, eds., Nasilstvennaia prestupnost, Moscow: Spark, 1997: 19 (in chapter by V.V. Luneev). Interestingly, six other Soviet successor states had murder rates higher than Ukraine; for example, Kazakhstan at 15, Latvia at 16, and Estonia at 24. 35. Dolgova, A.I., ed., Kriminologiia: Uchebnik dlia iuridicheskikh vuzov, Moscow: InfraM-Norma, 1997, 147; "Prilozhenie," (to Kulik and Bobyr), 136 (see note 1). 36. Ibid., 184-5; Prestupnost i pravonarusheniia, 1991-1995, 19-20 (see note 3). 37. "The 1989 Census: A Preliminary Report," Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 42 (17) (1989), 17-23; Ryan, Michael (compiler), Contemporary Soviet Society: A Statistical Handbook, London: Edward Elgar, 1990: 94-5. 38. Dolgova, A.I., ed., Kriminologiia, 712-713; 764-769 (see note 25). 39. For a brief discussion of methodological obstacles in comparative criminology, see Van Dijk, Jan, and Kristiina Kangaspunta, "Piecing Together the Cross-National Crime Puzzle," National Institute of Justice Journal (January 2000): 35-41. More generally see Nelken, David, "Whom Can You Trust? The Future of Comparative Criminology," in The Futures of Criminology, ed. David Nelken, London: Sage Publications, 1994: 220-43. 40. S.S. Boskholov, a Russian scholar and member of the Duma, refers to the link between entrepreneurs, corrupt officials, and criminals as an "iron triangle." See his unpublished report on "problems in the fight against corruption in Russia" presented to the Central and East European Law Initiative of the American Bar Association, April 22, 1999. 41. On the shadow or "second" economy in the Brezhnev period, see Grossman, Gregory: "The Second Economy in the U.S.S.R.," Problems of Communism 26 (5) (1977), 25-40; on the criminogenic connections, see Anderson, Annelise, "The Red Mafia: A Legacy of Communism," in Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia: Realities of Reform, ed. Edward P. Lazear, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995: 340-66. The estimate of the size of the shadow economy is Grossman's. 42. For an overview of this story, see Sergeyev, Victor M., "New Social Phenomena and Crime in Post-Communist Russia," Russian Politics and Law 36 (5) (Sept-ember-October 1998): 3-8. See also Jones, Anthony, and William Moskoff, Ko-ops: The Rebirth of Entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. 43. On the legal framework of managerial privatization, see Johnson, Simon, and Heidi Kroll, "Managerial Strategies for Spontaneous Privatization," Soviet Economy 7 (4) (1991): 281-316. 44. The term "criminal-political nexus" first appeared in Shelley, Louise I., "The Political-Criminal Nexus: Russian-Ukrainian Case Studies," unpublished (1998). 45. See, inter alia, Glinkina, Svetlana, "The Shadow Economy in Contemporary Russia," Russian Politics and Law 34 (2) (March-April, 1996): 46-70; and Esipov, V.M., Tenevaia ekonomika: Uchebnoe posobie, Moscow: Moskovskii Institut MVD Rossii, 1997. 46. A World Bank estimate reported in "Sostoianie borby s organizovannoi prestupnostiu," 19 (see note 22). Other estimates include: 33 percent for the whole FSU in 1994 (by Daniel Kaufmann and Paul Siegelbaum) and 55 percent (Louise Shelley) for Ukraine in 1997. Kaufmann, Daniel, and Paul Siegelbaum, "Privatization and Corruption in Transition Economics," Journal of International Affairs 30 (2) (Winter 1997): 420; Shelley, "Organized Crime and Corruption," 656 (see note 4). Note that as of 1989, before the collapse of the Soviet economic system, estimates of the size of the shadow economy fell in the 17 to 25 percent range. Holmes, Leslie, The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 149-50. 47. On tax-collection problems in Russia, see Morozov, Alexander, "Tax Administration in Russia," East European Constitutional Review 5 (2-3) (1996): 39-47; and a unique anthropological study, Zschoch, Barbara, "Tax Fraud in Yaroslavl Small Enterprises: Techniques, Causes, Cures," unpublished paper 1997. On tax issues in Ukraine, see Kravchuk, Robert, "Ukraine's Soviet Inheritance: A Weak State," in State and Institution Building in Ukraine, ed. Taras Kuzio, Robert Kravchuk, and Paul D'Anieri, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 48. Ordinary citizens have their feet in both realms, too. An estimated 80 percent of Ukrainians received income from the second economy that they do not report. Tenevaia ekonomika: Opyt kriminologicheskogo issledovaniia, Lugansk: LIVD MVD Ukrainy, 1997: 38; "Problemy sozdaniia gosudarstva i zashchity prav cheloveka v Ukraine," Materialy II regionalnyoi nauchnoi konferentsii (February 1996), unpublished (Lviv, 1996), 4. 49. See the report of his remarks at the December 14, 1999, meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Fighting Corruption and Organized Crime, in Omel'chenko, G., and A. Ermak, "Pravitelstvennye garantii-kak zerkalo ukrainskoi korruptsii," Golos Ukrainy, January 20, 2000, 3-5. 50. For helpful discussions of the difficulty of defining organized crime in western literature, see Hobbs, Dick, "Criminal Collaboration," in The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 2d ed., ed. M. Maguire, R. Morgan, and R. Reiner, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997: 801-40; and Jacobs James and Christopher Panarella, "Organized Crime," in The Handbook of Crime and Punishment, M. Tonry, ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998: 159-77. 51. Thus, although the Moscow criminologist Azalia Dolgova prefers a narrow, Western-style definition of "organized crime," her Ukrainian counterpart Zelinskii prefers a broad one. See Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 197-201 (see note 4). 52. Public remarks of Volodymr Stashis, the President of the Ukrainian Academy of Legal Sciences and Director of the Kharkiv Center for the Study of Organized Crime, at an NIJ-sponsored conference on criminology in Kyiv, November 20, 1999. See also Glushkov, unpublished report, 1999. 53. "Dannye o proiavleniiakh organizovannoi prestupnosti v 1993-1997 v Rossii," Organizovannaia prestupnost, no. 4 (1998): 258-61. 54. Luneev reports that in 1996, the Russian MVD decided no longer to record organized crime on the basis of police data, and now relies only on prosecution statistics. Luneev, V.V., Prestupnost XX veka: mirovoi kriminologicheskii analiz, Moscow: Norma, 1997: 303. 55. See Maguire, Mike, "Crime Statistics, Patterns, and Trends," in Maguire et al., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 144 (see note 50). 56. Note that a recent study of Russian organized crime concluded that of more than 5,000 criminal groups identified at that time, only 350 would meet the usual Western understanding of organized crime, and between 12 and 20 deserved classification as "major cartels." Luneev, V.V., "Organizovannaia prestupnost v Rossii: osoznanie, istoki, tendentsii," Gosudarstvo i pravo, no.4 (1996): 96-109. 57. See Zlochinnost v Ukraini, Kyiv: State Committee on Statistics, 1999: 48. We discuss this in greater detail in chapter 3. 58. Luneev, Prestupnost XX veka, 304 (see note 54). A. I. Alekseev, another Russian criminologist, reports that whereas 22 percent of all crime was committed in groups, only 2 percent was committed by organized criminal groups. See Alekseev, A.I., Kriminologiia: kurs lektsii, Moscow: Kriminologicheskaia assosiatsiia, 1999: 195. 59. Quoted in Zelinskii, Kriminologiia, 201 (see note 4). 60. Such leading scholars as Luneev and Galeotti claim that the groups themselves are "amorphous" and "loose networks," with "no rigid chain of command." Luneev, V.V., Prestupnost XX veka, 287 (see note 54); Galeotti, Marc, "The Mafia and the New Russia," Australian Journal of Politics and History 44 (3) (1998): 415-16, and Galeotti, Marc, "Inside the Russian Mafia" Jane's Intelligence Review 12 (3) (March 2000) (available by subscription at jir.janes.com). For an insightful discussion of the various forms of organization, see Williams, Philip, "Introduction," in Russian Organized Crime: The New Threat? ed. Philip Williams, London: Frank Cass, 1997: 12-14. 61. For example, the offense-based taxonomy of crime preferred by Karpets, the aged dean of Soviet criminology, is criticized by Luneev, a younger scholar, as "casuistic." Prestupnost XX veka, 285 (see note 54). 62. For examples, see Alekseev, 195-206 (see note 58); Zelinskii, 200-8 (see note 4); and A. Dolgova, ed. Kriminologiia, 595-609 (see note 25). 63. See Galeotti, "The Mafia and the New Russia"; and "Inside the Russian Mafia" (see note 60). On April 13, 2000, on Russian television, the Russian Prosecutor General's office reported that there were only 500 real organized groups, with 4,000 active members. See also Luneev, V.V., "Organizovannaia prestupnost v Rossii" (see note 56). 64. Glushkov, unpublished report, 1999. Comparable data for Russia suggest a slightly higher degree of intergroup contact and cooperation. According to Luneev, "Organizovannaia prestupnost v Rossii" (see note 56), in 1995, 4.4 percent of Russian crime groups had international ties, and 13 percent had interregional connections with other groups in the former Soviet Union. 65. The collaborative U.S.-Ukrainian research groups supported by the International Center of the National Institute of Justice are organized along functional or crime-specific lines. For example, most groups have focused their research on specific kinds of offenses, such as human trafficking, money laundering, and drug trafficking. 66. Volkov, Vadim, "Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 51 (5) (July 1999): 741-54. 67. "Sostoianie borby s organizovannoi prestupnostiu v Ukraine" 25-26 (see note 22); Shelley, Louise I., "Human Trafficking: Defining the Problem," Organized Crime Watch-Russia, 1 (2) (February 1999): 1-2. 68. Kulik and Bobyr, "Obshchaia tendentsiia prestupnosti v Ukraine v 1972-1993 gg. i prognoz na blizhaishie gody," Prestupnost v Ukraine (Biulleten zakonodavstva i iuridichnoi prakitiki Ukraini), no. 2 (1994): 5-37" 19 (see note 1); International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1997: Ukraine, Washington, DC: Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 1998. 69. "Molodezh i narkotiki: nauchnyi otchet po itogam sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia," unpublished report, Kharkov: MVD Universitet vnutrennykh del, kafedra sotsiologii, 1997. For analogous data and analysis of adolescents and narcotics in the Russian Federation, see Popov, V.A., and O.Iu. Kondrateva, "Narkotizatsiia v Rossii-shag do nationalnoi katastrofy," Sotstiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 8 (1998): 65-8. 70. "Sostoianie borby s organizovannoi prestupnostiu v Ukraine" 12-13, 16-17 (see note 22). 71. Ibid., 17-24 (see note 22). 72. Antilenko, V.F., Sovremennyi terrorizm: sostoianie i vozmozhnosti ego uprezhdeniia (kriminologicheskoe issledovanie), Kyiv, 1998: 156, 145. 73. For wise observations along these lines, see Beare, Margaret, "Corruption and Organized Crime: Lessons from History," Crime, Law and Social Change, 28 (2) (1997): 155-72. See as well the trenchant remarks of Andras Sajo "that corruption in Eastern Europe is, in part, a function of Western perceptions." Sajo, Andras, "Corruption, Clientelism and the Future of the Constitutional State in Eastern Europe," East European Constitutional Review 7 (2) (Spring 1998): 37-46. 74. For example, the Russian observer Boskholov cautions against careless campaigns against corruption for precisely these reasons. See Bos