The ‘economic activities’ of Russian police

International Journal of Police Science & Management. 2008. Vol. 10. No. 1. P. 65–75.

Wilson D. G., Kolennikova O., Kosals L., Ryvkina R., Simagin Y.

This research is an analysis of the ‘economic
activities’ of Russian police officers. ‘Economic
activities’ include acts defined as police corruption
and police misconduct. Some of the activities are
those which, if pursued in police agencies in the
United States, would be defined as ‘moonlighting’.
The Russian Law of the Militia defines not
only police corruption and other forms of misconduct
but defines and limits police participation in
what would be considered legal economic activities.
This law limits police ‘moonlighting’ to
teaching, research or the arts. Other legitimate
work such as private security, sales, etc comes to
be defined as ‘misconduct’. The findings are based
on surveys from 2,209 police officers stationed in
eight regions of Russia during 2002. The surveys
solicited self-report information on a variety
of forms of police misconduct and corruption as well as attitudes concerning police misconduct and
corruption and public attitudes toward police. In
addition to the survey, interviews were conducted
with police to gather qualitative information. The
results showed that Russian police are highly
involved in ‘economic’ activities in addition to
their regular responsibilities as police. Many of
the economic activities involve corruption. Many
are those prohibited by the Law of the Militia. In
fact, most of the reported activity was police
misconduct created through the application of the
Law of the Militia. It would not be considered
illegal, immoral or unethical if the individual
involved was not a police officer. This Law of the
Militia plays a significant role in the institutionalisation
of corruption and the creation of
secondary deviance within this police force.