the national wealth is well-known. Some of them have taken a beating lately. Others are still thriving. The system that produced them has not changed.

Who will take the responsibility (and when) for the fact that the income of an average Russian citizen catastrophically fell as a result of the criminal outcome of reforms? In 1985, annual individual income was $5,300 and Russia ranked 13 th in the world in terms of personal income. In 1995, this income fell to $2,200 and the country is now in 97 th place.

The critics of today's regime refer to it by different names. Grigorii Yavlinsky calls it a semi-criminal oligarchy. Alexander Solzhenitsyn calls it a plutocracy. As a criminologist, I find George Sorts' most appealing: a regime of "bandit-robbing capitalism." [...]

Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, American University, Washington, DC. 1999. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

Louise Shelley, Anna Repetskaya, Analysis: Corruption Research among Convicted Government and Law Enforcement Officials, "Organized Crime Watch --NIS" Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, American University, Washington, DC, Volume 1, Number 3, March/April, 1999.

Dr. Louise Shelley is Director, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University, Washington, DC; Dr. Anna Repetskaya is Director, lrkutsk Center. (This article was written by Dr. Shelley based on Dr. Repetskaya's research.)

The following analysis is based on a 1998 survey of five hundred inmates in a spe- cial labor camp outside of Irkutsk, which houses convicted former law enforcement and government officials. During the Soviet period, this labor camp housed Yuri Churbanov, former deputy director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and Brezhnev's son-in-law.

There was a 90% response rate to the survey, and the written commentaries at- tached to the questionnaire indicate that the inmates trusted in the anonymity of the survey. This survey on corruption is unprecedented in the Russian Federation. It is the first such survey to be conducted among convicted law enforcement and govern- ment personnel in a labor colony. It revealed the following:

The majority of inmates had worked for the police (part of the MVD). But unlike the inmates from the procuracy, the judiciary or the customs service, militia person- nel were more likely to be incarcerated for ordinary crimes such as assault and theft than for those connected with the performance of their duties. Less than one third of former police had committed job-related offenses, such as bribery and misuse of their positions, while that was the case for the majority of former procurators and the preponderance of customs (86 %) and judicial personnel (89 %).

The offenses of police differ little from those they are policing, while other branches of the legal system suffer primarily from corruption. This data suggests that the criminalization of the police is more severe than other branches of government.

TRENDS 1N GLOBAL CORRUPTION 119

Examination of the corruption data from the survey reveals that the majority of convicted officials were driven to engage in corruption by financial circumstances (61.7%), while the security of their families (12.1%), feelings of obligation for pre- vious services (14.2%) and familial relations (10.6%) were much less prevalent rea- sons for this conduct.

Almost 40 % of those who had worked in the police and had received bribes acknowledged that they were on the regular payroll of criminal organizations, while less than one-sixth of those in other parts of the legal system acknowledged such relationships.

Those who were convicted of taking bribes did not see themselves as excep- tional, because over 40% of those surveyed stated that it was chance circumstances that had led to their arrest.

The survey also provides surprising evidence of the internationalization of cor- ruption. Most corrupt and criminal links were with individuals in their region (65%), yet over 27% had contacts with officials from other regions and ethnic groups, and over 18% with representatives of other countries. The extent of the international contacts is surprising, noting that the population of the labor camp was drawn from across the Russian Federation.

Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, American University, Washington, DC. 1999. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

120 TRENDS IN ORGANIZED CRIME / FALL 1999