NCJ Number
147892
Journal
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 1/2 Dated: (Spring/Fall 1993) Pages: 189-201
Date Published
1993
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This paper analyzes the morphology of economic criminality in the former Soviet Union and recounts the endeavors of various administrations to deal with it, ranging from ruthless attempts at suppression to benign tolerance.
Abstract
With the collapse of the Soviet economy and the political structure behind it, the new governments are faced with the difficult task of decriminalizing what had been criminal--namely free enterprise--while at the same time confronting the excesses of free-market-type economic criminality, including organized economic crime, nationally and, increasingly, internationally. This paper deals with only one aspect of the former Soviet Union's experience with its centrally planned economy, namely its tendency to induce certain types of criminality, simply because planned economies create shortages. A centralized economy's main unwanted consequence is the creation of a shadow economy which competes with and supplements the official, state-imposed economy. The resulting criminality is merely a function of this shadow economy, both directly (its very existence is criminal) and indirectly (it fosters criminal activities in its wake and for its maintenance). Endnotes