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OCR for page 37
Organized Crime and Terrorism
Viktor Luneev *
Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of State and Law
Criminal terrorism (a journalistic term, inasmuch as any type of terrorism is
punishable by law) holds a special place in the range of various types of terror-
ism. It can include all or a majority of types of terrorist activity classified accord-
ing to various characteristics. A significant number of contract murders of busi-
nessmen, officials, politicians, and law enforcement officers, as well as bombings
inflicting massive casualties on innocent people, are committed for reasons of
greed or other criminal motives. Such actions represent about 25-30 percent of
all terrorist activity.
By its nature, criminal terrorism can be international and domestic. In
terms of location, it can occur on land, air, and sea and involve the use of
traditional and technological means that is, nuclear, chemical, biological, cy-
bernetic, and other means using highly toxic ingredients and especially de-
structive powerful explosives, as detailed in the reports of other seminar par-
ticipants. As a rule, criminal terrorism is internationalist, apolitical, and
atheistic. But it does not hesitate to cooperate with terrorist organizations oc-
cupying various ideopolitical platforms (ideological, nationalist, or religious).
Such cooperation could occur in the form of criminal terrorists supplying such
organizations with resources and weapons and using them to put pressure on
the authorities with the aim of protecting themselves or ennobling or covering
up their own purely criminal goals. If conditions are favorable, they are not
above jointly taking power hand in hand with opposition forces using terrorist
methods of struggle.
* Translated from the Russian by Kelly Robbins.
37
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38
HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
The omnivorous nature of criminal terrorism represents a particular social,
national, and international danger. In this regard, it is a special type of terrorist
activity with a specific causative base, and it is necessary that special measures
be taken to control and combat it.
Like any other type of terrorism, criminal terrorism can be committed by
lone individuals or groups. Acts of terrorism carried out by lone individuals are
today a relatively rare phenomenon and do not present particular social, national,
or transnational danger.
The leading figures in criminal terrorism are organized criminal groups,
societies, and organizations of a national or transnational nature. The merging of
organized crime and terrorism leads to the significant expansion of the financial,
material, and purely operational capabilities of terrorist organizations, along with
strengthening them structurally.)
Organized crime groups use fear and direct violence in various forms as
their main means of influencing the government, its representatives, lobbyists,
and their competitors in illegal and legal business in the aim of redistributing
spheres of influence, property, financial income streams, and types of criminal
and legal activities.
Premeditated contract killings of government officials, law enforcement per-
sonnel, judges, entrepreneurs, and bankers who hinder criminal activities, fail to
meet the demands of criminals, or compete with them in criminal or legal busi-
ness have become a daily phenomenon in our country and several others, as have
bloody conflicts to settle scores between the criminal groups themselves.
Examples of cooperation between terrorism and organized crime are espe-
cially widely observed in the states formed from the territory of the former
USSR.
Given the fact that Russia has not overcome criminal ties with regard to the
"money-property-power" and "power-property-money" chains, the terrorist ac-
tivity of organized crime has a tendency toward a certain political orientation in
order to pursue several goals. These include weakening the activities of law
enforcement agencies, slowing legislative initiatives unfavorable to the criminal
world, demoralizing the population, getting criminal kingpins or their helpers or
sponsors elected to organs of legislative power, obtaining important posts in the
federal and regional executive branches, and gaining immunity from legal prose-
cution for crimes committed.
The striving of organized crime toward these desired political results is used
by some far from politically clean parties, which receive serious financial sup-
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
39
port from organized criminals in the form of "black" or "gray" contributions to
their political interests. They repay this support by lobbying for the interests of
criminal groups, placing organized crime figures in their electoral lists, and pro-
viding other political help to the criminal world. Such actions are facilitated
under current Russian conditions by the imperfect nature of legislation on parties
and elections. Efforts have begun to substantially rework this legislation, but
they are proceeding in a contradictory fashion as a result of the struggle of
opinions of various political formations both within the Duma itself and outside
its walls. During discussion of the draft law on parties in May 2001, sharp
exchanges focused on the question of unregistered financing of parties by private
individuals. A similar practice also exists in some other countries. Let us recall
the case involving secret financing given to the party of Helmut Kohl as just one
example.
Organized crime in the United States appeared during the period of Vol-
stead's Prohibition (the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution), which was
adopted in 1919 and rescinded in 1933 during the world economic crisis. It still
takes the form of illegal activity carried out by criminal associations. It has long
infiltrated legal businesses, unions, and political organizations. U.S. President
Richard Nixon once defined the three goals of organized crime in the United
States as exploitation, corruption, and destruction. The last form of criminal
activity also represents criminal terrorism, to a certain extent.
U.S. organized crime in the 1920s through the 1960s developed relatively
slowly and was accompanied by the gradual formation of social and legal con-
trols aimed at it: laws on racketeering (1946), narcotics (1956), street crime
control and security (1968), ongoing criminal enterprises (1970), racketeer influ-
enced and corrupt enterprises (Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
Act [RICO], 1978), et cetera.
The political, socioeconomic, and organizational-legal conditions in our
country were different when organized crime seriously made its appearance (the
1970s and 1980s). The appearance and development of our native mafia is based
in the foundations of the shadow economy, socialist distribution relations, and
the awkward system in which state property seemingly belonged to no one.
During the period of perestroika and market reforms, social and legal controls
over crime in general utterly collapsed, and organized crime was completely
beyond control.
For more than 15 years, there was heated disagreement over the need for
passing a law on combating organized crime. Only in 1997 did we see the
creation, more or less, of a basis in criminal law for the fight against organized
crime (the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). During this time,
organized crime has grown, strengthened, and stratified, in practice penetrating a
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HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
significant portion of the economic and political life of our country. During a
visit to Moscow in 1994, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Louis
Freeh said that Russia had very quickly realized the danger of organized crime,
something that had taken America 50 years to accomplish. I think that he flat-
tered Russia too much. The Russian judicial community indeed began to recog-
nize the enormous danger of organized crime in the mid-1980s, but the govern-
ment proved to be immune to such a realization.
The law enforcement agencies set up some sort of accounting of organized
crime based on their operations data. In 1989, 486 organized groups were count-
ed, while in 1995 the figure was 8222 almost 17 times higher. Organized crime
groups were working more intensively to establish international and regional
ties. The degree of corruption of organized crime grew even more intensively
(by an order of magnitude). These data are very subjective. Given the lack of
legal criteria and in the interests of demonstrating successful actions, the internal
affairs agencies often listed common crimes committed by groups under the
heading of organized crime.
Unfortunately, many law enforcement agencies merely engage in window
dressing. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark writes: "How much
effort have law enforcement personnel devoted to chasing petty thugs so that
some district attorney or police chief or federal agency head could create a
reputation for himself." By the way, there have been hundreds of books about
organized crime written in the United States, but there are still no federal statis-
tics on this sort of criminal activity. U.S. federal databases register only eight
types of "serious" crimes (murder, rape, assault, robbery, theft, etc.) and include
no data on organized crime or terrorism.2 Meanwhile, these data may be found
indirectly in prison statistics. In 1999, for example, U.S. prisons held individuals
serving sentences for drug dealing (39.7 percent), pornography and prostitution
(17.5 percent), fraud (11.2 percent), and other activities in which organized crime
groups are significantly involved.3
It was inflated operational data and loud pronouncements by opposition
Russian politicians that served as the basis for the 1997 study on Russian orga-
nized crime conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies un-
der the leadership of William Webster. This study included many topical obser-
vations and useful conclusions, but on the whole it was of a political nature
designed to scare its audience. This is despite the fact that by our calculations,
Russian organized crime figures comprise no more than 5-10 percent of U.S.
mafia structures even if you include all the organized crime elements who came
from the former USSR but have no relation whatsoever with Russian organized
crime (with Russian being defined as pertaining either to the Russian Federation
or Russian ethnicity, as the term is commonly understood in the United States).
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
41
I say this not to engage in any sort of self justification or to minimize the
real danger of Russian organized crime. The mafia in all countries is becoming
increasingly transnational. As shown by the case involving the Bank of New
York and other U.S. banks, Russian-organized groups could conduct "dirty"
deals there only with the participation of American organized crime clans. In this
regard, exchanges of scary stories leads to nothing it is mutual actions that are
needed. We might recall the words of the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy. He
said that if bad people join together, then good people must also join together.
We Russians, for example, are very pleased by the positive agreements made by
Russian and American representatives regarding the struggle against Afghan
terrorism.
A relatively reliable database of actions committed by organized crime
groups is being established in Russia on the basis of existing legislation. These
actions are entered into the database only when they have been clearly estab-
lished and the subsequent criminal case has been fully investigated and submit-
ted to a court.
In 2000, for example, 27,362 crimes committed by organized crime groups
were registered, including 195 murders and 1734 crimes against public security
(3 terrorist acts, 8 cases of hostage taking, 404 gangster robberies, 77 instances
involving the organization of a crime society or criminal organization, and other
actions). That same year, 135 cases of terrorism were registered on the whole (an
increase of 576 percent in comparison with 1999), along with 49 cases of hos-
tage-taking and 513 of gangsterism. As a rule, these actions, which fall into the
category of criminal and other types of terrorism, are committed by organized
crime groups or illegal armed formations, which are also fundamentally related
to organized crime. A significant portion of the crimes cited remain unsolved;
therefore, they are not included in the organized crime database. For example, of
the 135 registered cases of terrorism in 2000, only 3 terrorist acts committed by
organized crime elements were officially established after investigation. Another
11 cases of terrorism were discovered, but the participation of organized crime
elements was not proven, and the remaining 121 cases of apparent terrorism
were never solved. As of May 2001, internal affairs agencies have recorded 133
cases of terrorism this year, of which only 6 cases have been solved and official-
ly registered. The fact that terrorists operate with impunity in the world and
especially in Russia is a problem of exceptional significance.
Terrorism researchers, or "terrologists," as they might be called, are predict-
ing the growth of various types of terrorism, especially those connected with
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HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
radical political, separatist, nationalist, religious, and fundamentalist tendencies.
This prediction is coming true in reality. Negative trends are also predicted with
regard to criminal terrorism. Terrorism has substantially changed over the past
century. It has become more severe and has taken on a relatively massive scale
and worldwide significance. A review of the chronology of global terrorism in
recent years presents the following statistical picture: in 1993, there were 45
terrorist acts registered; in 1994,55; in 1995,78; in 1996,90; in 1997,94; and in
1998, 117.4 This represents an increase of 160 percent in five years. The average
annual rate of increase was more than 10 percent. In 1999-2001, this trend is
intensifying. Corrupting organized crime, with its enormous material and organi-
zational resources and its power (through its sponsors), could very well gain
access to high-tech means of terrorism. In the world today, there are 23 countries
that openly or secretly possess nuclear weapons, but there are grounds for be-
lieving the number actually to be 44 countries, including totalitarian regimes.5
American films showing organized crime using nuclear weapons to blackmail
governments could turn out to be reality.
The overall intensification of terrorism in the current century will be closely
linked with worldwide processes of globalization. This is already creating fierce
and even violent resistance on the part of many thousands of various segments and
groups of the population, as confirmed by the events in Davos and Seattle, where
globalization problems were being discussed. It should be emphasized that this
resistance was coming from well-off Americans and Europeans. Imagine what can
be expected from those peoples left on the sidelines of globalization.
Globalization is the key problem illustrating the main trend of world devel-
opment and the main contradiction of the twenty-first century. The key problem
of the second half of the twentieth century was the conflict of two world sys-
tems. Now it is the interaction of fourth-generation civilizations against the back-
drop of accelerating processes of globalization and localization. These processes
are seriously affecting the lives of each one of us and the lives of each country
and the world as a whole. They have long concerned the thinking segments of
the population in various countries, inasmuch as they bring with them not so
many positive changes as negative ones.
In our country alone, more than 10 domestic and foreign books have been
published in the past year devoted to various aspects of globalization and the world
and national threats it presents. For the sake of objectivity, I shall cite only the
foreign books: Entering the Twenty-First Century (report of the World Bank on
world development for 1999-2000, including an introduction by J. Wolfensohn);
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
43
The Crisis of Global Capitalism (G. Soros); The Grand Chessboard (Z. Brzezin-
ski); and The Global Trap: The Assault on Democracy and Prosperity (H.P.
Martin and H. Schumann, well-known editors of the German magazine Der
Spiegel).
The books were written by people of very different sorts, but their essence is
identical: globalization, which is on the one hand objective and on the other
actively pushed by transnational, monopolistic financial and industrial entities,
the political and economic elite of the golden billion, and especially the United
States, carries with it disastrous consequences for world civilization.
Obviously, the same words sound different coming from the lips of different
people. Therefore, I will touch on a few issues and predictions advanced by West-
ern researchers, since it is more difficult to suspect them of tendentiousness.
In their well-argued internationally-published work The Global Trap: The
Assault on Democracy and Prosperity, the German authors consider such urgent
questions as the following:
The 20:80 society;
World rulers en route to a different civilization;
Globalization and global disintegration;
Dictatorship with limited liability, and playing with billions;
The "Law of the Wolves" and the job crisis;
The myth of the fairness of globalization;
Sauce, qui Peut and the disappearing middle class;
The poor global players and the welcoming back of compulsion;
Who does the state belong to the loss of national sovereignty;
The dangerous world policeman, et cetera.
The authors present the contemporary world as if from an unseen side, re-
vealing harsh economic realities and leaving no rosy illusions regarding free
competition, freedom of speech, and equality for all. They show the world of the
industrial-financial elite that today rules the world economic order, which the
authors demonstratively call the global trap for all of modern postindustrial civi-
lization. Globalization will substantially expand the socioeconomic base (social
inequality, ethnoreligious contradictions, uncontrolled intergovernmental rela-
tions and conflicts, problems of refugees and poverty, et cetera) for various types
of terrorism, and primarily for criminal terrorism.
I am not a specialist in globalistics. As a criminologist, I am interested in
such matters only within the scope of certain criminologically significant cir-
cumstances at the international level.
The first criminologically significant problem is that of employment. Glo-
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HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
balists describe it with the help of the figures 20:80 and the concept of "tittytain-
ment." In the twenty-first century, 20 percent of the population will be needed.
The other 80 percent will be left on the world periphery, extras without work or
the means for survival and having colossal problems of a criminal nature. They
must be satisfied only with tittytainment, a term coined by Brzezinski. As ex-
pressed by a participant in discussions at the Fairmont Hotel in 1995 (San Fran-
cisco), the dilemma will be "to have lunch or be lunch."6
There are no Russian citizens on the golden list of the world's billion-
aires. For almost a hundred years, with all their enormous territorial, natural,
economic, demographic, physical, and intellectual capacities, Russians have
been unable to break away from need and poverty for reasons of both an
internal and an external nature. The American scholar Thomas Graham, Jr.,
writes that the United States has enormous interest in Russia's recovery, but
he is "even more concerned that the lessons of the l990s have shown that we
[Americans] have greater potential to do harm than good (by means of direct
intervention in Russia's internal transformation)." These words are not news
to his fellow countrymen who are well aware of the price of our market
reforms as recommended by advisers from Harvard and elsewhere. It is this
century of humiliation that forms the basis for many reasons explaining cur-
rent Russian crime problems of a national and global nature. The influence
of globalization as planned by the world economic elite could provide a
strong impetus to the growth of crime in Russia and could intensify orga-
nized crime and criminal terrorism. Many years of mass frustrations provide
a foundation for the strengthening of aggression, violence, and terrorism.
The second criminologically significant problem is that of financial specula-
tion markets. More than 80 percent of financial capital is in free circulation and
does not have any real material form. This is a market in which money makes
money, that is, a market for roulette players. Thanks to computer technologies,
the financial market the lion's share of which is the financial speculations
market has been like an iron ring drawing in all countries around the major
financial magnates of the countries of the golden billion. This makes it possible
for them, depending on their own interests, to place this or that country on the
verge of financial collapse. Indeed, the system of such collapses began long ago,
including for Russia.
This same conclusion is reached not only by Russian authors, but also by the
outstanding entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author of the theory of reflexivity,
George Soros. In his next to last book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1999),
he cites words he spoke at the U.S. Congress: "The global capitalist system,
which has been responsible for the remarkable prosperity of this country in the
last decade, is coming apart at the seams. The current decline in the U.S. stock
market is only a symptom, and a belated symptom at that, of the more profound
problems that are afflicting the world economy. Some Asian stock markets have
suffered worse declines than the Wall Street crash of 1929 and in addition their
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
45
currencies have also fallen to a fraction of what their value was when they were
tied to the U.S. dollar . . . Russia has undergone a total financial meltdown. It . . .
will have incalculable human and political consequences. The contagion has now
also spread to Latin America."7 Such an accusation of the current world financial
system is being made not by the Communist Zyuganov, but by the capitalist
Soros. His words can never be taken as Communist demagoguery. He deserves
to be listened to.
In our country, all "Black Tuesdays" have been accompanied by a further
redistribution of property along with contract murders and criminal terrorism.
The third criminologically significant problem is that of the substantial re-
duction of the capacities of national governments to govern society and fight
crime. In late 2000, the World Bank published its twenty-second and most recent
analysis.8 As noted by J. Wolfensohn himself, the main problems covered in the
report are globalization and localization, which today represent two contradicto-
ry global challenges for the world community.
Globalization dictates that national governments should strive to conclude
agreements with other national governments and international organizations, in-
cluding military entities, non-governmental organizations, and multinational cor-
porations, the role of which is intensifying to an extraordinary degree. Corpora-
tions dictate the subjugation of national entities (not the United Nations, as a
rule) and the limitation of the powers of national governments.
Localization or disintegration demands that national governments agree
("share") with regions and cities on matters regarding the division of responsibil-
ities by subnational institutions. Here we see the decentralization of remaining
power and sometimes even the breakup of countries, which might be seen as
advantageous by supranational military and economic entities and thus support-
ed by them (for example, Chechnya). It is expected that up to 500 states could be
formed worldwide.
These two contradictory demands bring to mind he inviolability of borders
and the right of nations to self-determination, which by the rules of double stan-
dards are advanced by supranational forces, depending on their interests. But
force, as everyone knows, needs no justification.
Both globalization and disintegration carry with them substantial conditions
for the growth of organized crime and its terrorist activity in a situation charac-
terized by a harsh struggle for survival.
The list of criminological problems stemming from globalization could be
continued. Along with economic and political globalization, there is the process
of criminal globalization in the form of the intensive development of transna-
tional organized crime. An analysis of five reviews of world crime trends on the
basis of data collected by the United Nations since 1970 shows that each country
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HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
has its own unique type of crime, based on criminal-legal definitions, rates,
structure, dynamics, and other criminological characteristics.9 The differences
are great. However, along with existing national characteristics, there are more
substantial common criminological characteristics in various countries and the
world as a whole:
· Crime exists in all states.
countries.
· Its dominant motivation is the same everywhere.
· Its level is steadily increasing worldwide and in the absolute majority of
· As a rule, crime is increasing at a rate several times higher than the rate
of increase of the population.
· Crimes of greed predominate and are growing at a more intense rate than
crimes ot violence.
· Violent crime is becoming increasingly harsh and bloody.
· The most common victims of crime are men, especially young men.
Meanwhile, the process of the feminization of crime has long been observed.
Economic development in countries is not being accompanied by a re-
duction in the crime rate, as had been supposed.
.
.
~ he cnm~na~-~ega~ struggle against crime Is experiencing a profound crisis.
· Prisons do not reeducate.
The death penalty does not keep the crime rate from increasing.
In addition, processes are under way that are leading to the unification of
criminal actions, making criminals better organized, better armed, and better
protected. Crime is becoming more transnational and international in scope. The
above-mentioned characteristics represent the real marks of the globalization of
crime and of the world as a whole.
Despite all the substantial variations in crime rates in various countries, the
first and defining trend in the world is the absolute and relative growth of crime,
with relative being understood in terms of population size, economic develop-
ment, culture, and so forth. In the United States alone in 1994-1999, a reduction
was noted in eight types of crime tracked statistically (the reduction totaled
about 15% for the five-year period).~° These notable successes cost the Ameri-
can taxpayer $30.2 billion. And this is due only to a law passed in 1994. The
absolute majority of countries do not have that kind of money to fight crime.
There are sufficient grounds to assert that crime is now five times higher
worldwide than it was a quarter of a century ago, relative to the size of the popula-
tion. The highest levels of crime and the relatively high rates of increase regarding
crime are registered in the richest and most developed democratic countries. Here
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
47
one must take into account not only reported crime, but also latent crime as well as
the objectivity of the records and record-keeping practices.
The lowest levels of crime are observed in countries with totalitarian re-
gimes (fascist, religious-fundamentalist, communist, and other authoritarian
forms), where the struggle against crime is often waged using methods common
to crime itself. But such "effective" crime control is nothing other than a non-
criminalized abuse of power by the authorities in such countries against their
own people state terror. The victims of such abuses pay many times over for
the low level of criminally prosecuted crime.
Over the past century, mankind has driven itself into a criminal trap, the exit
from which has yet to be found. Democracy is often powerless in the face of
growing crime, acknowledging only brute force, while totalitarianism, capable
of holding traditional crime somewhat in check, is itself criminal in its nature
and therefore does not reduce the victimization of the people.
An optimal solution would appear to lie in firm social-legal democratic
control over crime, based on laws passed democratically and carried out with
strict observance of fundamental human rights. The world has suffered and will
accept such a solution. But the forces pushing globalization propose another
strategy: under the banner of the struggle for human rights and using double
standards, they would impose their own supranational economic and military
control over countries and territories within the orbit of their interests, which
will only strengthen the determination of terrorists of various sorts, including the
criminal variety.
A special danger is presented by transnational organized crime, which is
terroristic, economic, and corrupting, parasitizing on the trade in drugs, weap-
ons, people, and human organs. Growth rates for this sort of crime are higher
than those for traditional criminal activities.
A second basic trend in the area of crime is the gradual lagging of social-
legal controls over crime and its qualitative and quantitative tendencies. The
reasons for this are numerous and varied. In the system defined as "crime and the
fight against it," crime takes the first position. The fight against it is only the
response of society and the state to its challenge, a response that is not always
timely, adequate, expedient, or effective.
The trend toward the intensive growth of crime and the trend of the "lag-
ging" of social-legal controls over it are linked together in a sort of vicious
circle. This circle can be broken only by means of a limited combination of
criminal-legal and criminological strategies of fighting crime, namely by con-
trolling and preventing it on the national and transnational levels.
Based on current trends and basic laws of historical development, it is not
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HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
hard to predict the future course of existing tendencies of national and transnation-
al organized crime and its most dangerous forms—criminal terrorism under condi-
tions of intensive globalization, the weakening of national governments, and an
intensified struggle for survival if human society does not come up with global
and national measures to minimize such factors in a timely manner.
We continue to live in conditions marked by wars and armed conflicts;
endless outbreaks of social, racial, national, and religious enmity; and an unprec-
edented onslaught of terrorism, violence, robbery, fraud, technological and eco-
logical disasters, and other forms of modern crime.
Against this backdrop, other tendencies and characteristics of current Rus-
sian and, to a certain extent, world crime take on great significance.
1. The population is becoming accustomed to crime, and this is especially
true of young people. About 20 years ago, we would have been profoundly
shocked by the long list of incidents of bloody organized terrorism, massive
seizures of hostages, trade in human beings, endless public contract killings,
many millions of cases of fraud, and the open and unprecedented corruption of
high-ranking state officials. Today we see this almost every day and take it as a
given.
2. We see the bloody criminal everywhere in the virtual world of foreign
movies and television programs. We are interested in this. In his book Travels
with Charley: In Search of America, the American writer John Steinbeck writes
that we love virtue, yet we take more interest not in the honest accountant, the
faithful wife, or the serious scholar, but rather in the bum, the charlatan, the
embezzler, the criminal, the bandit, the terrorist, et cetera. Increased demand
intensifies the work of the industry turning out crime films. Both becoming
accustomed to crime and taking an interest in the criminal are no less dangerous
trends.
3. The dominating motivation is pragmatic, utilitarian, and primitive greed
and other personal benefit. It has not changed since biblical times but has only
intensified. The process of the ""reedification" of social relations continues, not
only in the economic field, but also in the political, moral, and even creative
spheres. The hopes of mankind that progress based on economic development will
lead to a universal softening and improvement of morals have not been fulfilled.
4. There are up to 500 million crimes registered in the world each year. Given
that the world's population is 6 billion, that makes 8000 criminal acts per 100,000
people. Real levels of crime are at least twice as high, and in many countries
including Russia the figures would be four or five times higher. In fact, up to 12
million to 15 million crimes are committed in Russia annually; 3 million crimes
are officially registered along with 78 million administrative violations, based only
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
49
on data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the courts. Besides these, about
40 other agencies have administrative jurisdiction over various matters. The laten-
cy of administrative violations is an order of magnitude higher than the levels
reported. Statistically, we have an even correlation of the number of lawbreakers
with the number of people in the country, including children and the elderly.
5. Along with the real growth in crime, we are seeing an uninterrupted
process in which an ever-increasing number of societally dangerous and socially
harmful behaviors are being criminalized (legally classified as crimes) and "vio-
lation-ized" (classified as administrative violations). During the time that the last
four Russian Criminal Codes have been in effect, more than 300 new actions
were criminalized and about 100 were decriminalized. The individual changes
and additions made to the code number in the thousands. There is an uninterrupt-
ed stream of proposals to increase the number of specific types of crimes in the
Criminal Code. This process is natural. But when the trend toward criminaliza-
tion is three or four times higher than that for decriminalization, the situation
requires serious evaluation.
6. While the criminalization process is intensifying, it also frequently lags
behind the pace of events in general. This lagging is linked with the condescend-
ing attitude of the ruling political elite toward many widespread and dangerous
forms of organized criminal activity, factors that are especially important pre-
conditions for crime. Meanwhile, until they are officially classified as crimes,
deviations not affecting the interests of the elite occur practically freely.
7. Representatives of law enforcement agencies and research institutions
mistakenly consider that the intensive expansion of the sphere of activity consid-
ered to be crime actually signifies a process of strengthening law and order. This
long-time delusion is still accepted by many as an axiom. A concrete crimino-
logical analysis indicates the opposite. The criminal justice system is not coping
with the truly enormous volume of crime. If it today registered, investigated, and
tried even the majority of actions committed, it would collapse under the weight
of the many millions of criminal cases that would result. The criminal justice
system survives due to the fact that only a selected number of actions are charged,
not all the guilty are ever identified or found, and only 10 percent of real law-
breakers are ever tried. Only two to five percent of those individuals who actual-
ly committed criminally punishable acts are condemned to real measures of pun-
ishment (generally imprisonment). But the penitentiary system cannot withstand
even this. Annual mass amnesties provide some help.
8. Judging by the characteristics of those individuals who are arrested and
tried, our criminal justice system is targeted mainly at the poor, low-level, poorly
adapted, alcoholic, degraded, and marginal segments of society who have com-
mitted obvious traditional criminal acts and do not know how to defend them-
selves or buy their way out of trouble. Despite the declaration embedded in the
consciousness of the masses that "all are equal before the law," such statistics
have for centuries satisfied almost everyone the government, the elite, law
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so
HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
enforcement agencies, the courts, the prisons, criminologists (who seemingly
discovered the truth), and the majority of the population, except the segment that
"fell" into crime. It is this segment of the population against which the basic
force of the criminal justice system is today aimed. It is aimed selectively, as a
means of survival for law enforcement agencies (since it is easier, simpler, and
safer). Meanwhile, crimes of power, wealth, and intellect that is, institutional
organized and corrupting crime remain practically untouched. All of this repre-
sents a serious causative agent behind criminal violence and terrorism.
9. Crimes are committed by all segments of society, including the rich; the
educated; the high ranking; the ruling political, economic, and even scientific
elites; presidents; prime ministers; ministers; and governors. The real crime rate
among elite groups (expressed as a ratio of criminals from these groups com-
pared with the total number of individuals in the given groups) is no lower (or
not much lower) than the same rates for the low levels of the population. Crimes
of power, wealth, and intellect almost never fall within the scope of the activities
of law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, it is in this sphere that colossal mate-
rial, physical, and moral damage is done. Faith in democracy and in the econom-
ic and political reforms being carried out is destroyed. Trust in the authorities
and the state is undermined. Bitterness grows in a significant portion of the
population and, along with it, violence and criminal terrorism.
10. A situation has been created that has long been described in the litera-
ture: if you steal a loaf of bread, you go to prison, but if you steal a railroad, you
will be a senator. And that is how it has always been. The first thing that those in
power thought of after the death of the dictator Stalin was to obtain freedom
from legal controls on the part of law enforcement agencies. They managed to
achieve this, and their corruption even in Soviet times became almost universal.
Since then, they have not relinquished this privilege (let us recall the recent
fierce battle on the question of merely limiting i?] the immunity of deputies and
"senators" in the State Duma and Federation Council). Such notorious indul-
gences do not exist in the so-called civilized countries. Our political and ruling
elites easily adopt the declared rights and freedoms of European countries, but
they regard democratic controls over their unseemly activities as a return to
totalitarianism.
The above-mentioned trends and characteristics in the process of overall and
criminal globalization against the backdrop of the intensive increase (far from
just or well founded) in the gap between poor and rich countries and between
wealth and poverty within countries could become uncontrollable by society or
the state. The history of Russia and other countries shows that it is these factors
that can serve as the basis for political, ethnic, and criminal terrorism.
International cooperation in the fight against crime will become a very im-
portant aspect in the fight against all types of terrorism and transnational orga-
. ~ .
n~zea cnme.
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TERRORISM AND THE LAW
51
Criminologically significant problems of globalization must be reckoned with
in a timely manner both at the level of national crime fighting measures and at the
level of international legal measures. Today it is becoming obvious that in the
postwar period, crime became the main threat in our times. It is constantly chang-
ing, mimicking, and instantly filling unmonitored or poorly controlled niches.
The internationalization of modern life is accompanied by the international-
ization of crime and by the spread of its typical characteristics, tendencies, and
forms to other regions and countries. This demands an internationalization of the
struggle against crime, inasmuch as controlling its transnational component has
become practically impossible at the level of individual states acting alone.
The lack of measures to fight a particular type of criminal activity for
example, the laundering of "dirty" money, organized crime, drug trafficking, and
terrorism makes a country desirable not only to its own criminals, but also to
those from other countries.
International cooperation in the fight against crime in turn requires the pres-
ence of legal, organizational, and scientific support structures. This is the set of
problems that international cooperation must resolve in the process of ongoing
globalization.
Globalization and transnational crime make the expansion of international
cooperation in this area unavoidable. This can be done only with international
coordinating organizations and international-legal resolutions. These functions
have been undertaken by the United Nations, Interpol, Europol, and various non-
governmental organizations. It is important that they maintain and intensify their
activities. However, there are symptoms of a weakening of the United Nations
and its role.
The United Nations must continue to be the fundamental international body.
However, its role is gradually being reduced, and it is being supplanted by other
supranational agencies of leading countries of the world, by a "new type of
hegemony," the "American global systems in a unipolar world. Irving Kristol,
one of the ideologists of this sort of world order, declares: "One fine day, the
American people must recognize that they have already become the world's
imperial nation."~3 The circle is closing. All of this has already occurred on a
regional level in history. In this case, it is global totalitarianism with unavoidable
state terror and other types of terrorism political, nationalist, religious, and
criminal. The world must not allow this. We shall also hope that it will not allow
a return to the past either.
The process of globalization cannot be eliminated, but it must proceed along
an evolutionary path in parallel with legal support from the United Nations and
the entire international community in order to eliminate double standards, inter-
state forms of violence, and dictatorial methods from international relations.
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52
HIGH-IMPACT TERRORISM
NOTES
1. Modern Terrorism: Status and Prospects. 2000. Moscow, p. 74.
2. Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook. 1984. Washington, D.C.
3. Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics. 1999. P. 12.
4 Terrorism and Terrorists: A Handbook. 1999. Minsk, pp. 443-514.
5. Fyodorov, A.F. 2000. Russia' s Prospects in the World System of Coordinates in the Twenty-
First Century. Moscow, p. 34.
6. Martin, H.P., H. Schumann. 2001. The Global Trap: The Assault on Democracy and
Prosperity. Moscow, p. 21.
7. Soros, G. The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered. 1999. New York:
Public Affairs, p. ix.
8. World Bank. 2000. Entering the Twenty-First Century: Report on World Development for
1999-2000. Moscow.
9. United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. 1999. Global Report on
Crime and Justice. G. Newman, ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
10. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1998. Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports.
Washington, D.C., p. 7.
11. Berkowitz, L. 1993. Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences, and Control. Boston: McGraw-
Hill, Chapter 7.
12. Brzezinski, Z. 2000. The Grand Chessboard. Moscow, pp. 20-42.
13. Newsweek, April 26, 1999.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
criminal terrorism
