We came around the corner: Why crime is growing in the largest cities of Ukraine
The crime rate in Ukraine has increased rapidly over the three quarters of this year. And if some types of crimes have simply ceased to be noticed or classified as such (illegal possession of weapons, seizure of buildings, extortion, etc.), then the increase in the level of street crime, namely its most common segment - robbery, has been felt by residents of large cities, including Kyiv.
The opinion of theorists represented by teachers of legal disciplines, who either have already forgotten or never knew the peculiarities of the work of law enforcement agencies on the streets, on the so-called “ground”, agreed that the main reason for the deterioration of the crime situation, in particular in Kyiv, was Maidan and its inhabitants.
Of course, Maidan played its role in the criminalization of society, but attributing all the troubles to it alone is probably reckless.
Below I will list those circumstances, with the exception of the Maidan already mentioned by my colleagues, which led to a deterioration in the crime situation in Ukraine in general and in Kyiv in particular.
The new Code of Criminal Procedure, which was promoted by the Ukrainian authorities as a step towards the EU, is of dubious benefit - but in the end it turned out to be another “blunder” of the so-called European integration. In November 2012, the new Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine came into force, one of the features of which was the redistribution of procedural powers between the structures and services of law enforcement agencies. In fact, this led to the loss of independence in the work of employees of operational units - district police, criminal investigation, juvenile police, etc. These officers could wait weeks for written instructions from investigators on a particular case, wasting valuable time allowing the criminals to escape, dispose of stolen property, and “cover their tracks.” The negative result of this reform began to be felt just a few months later, when the criminal element realized that it now had a head start in relation to the police.
There is a shortage of personnel due to miserable wages and the low prestige of law enforcement work in Ukraine. Law enforcement agencies have almost completely lost their “middle level personnel.” The units “on the ground” are staffed either by yesterday’s graduates of specialized educational institutions, or by management from a lieutenant colonel and above. The first ones do not have knowledge and experience, and the second ones, in their opinion, already because of their length of service, are not supposed to go to brothels. There is no one to teach and instruct young people, they learn from their own mistakes, and having learned something, they also go into civilian structures, into human working conditions and their remuneration.
Forced migration of criminals. Military operations in the Donbass forced local criminals to migrate to calmer and more prosperous regions. The south-eastern regions have always held the lead in street crime. The locals didn’t even consider “squeezing a sucker’s phone” a crime. Probably, some of them joined the belligerents, and the rest went to Russia or large cities in the center and south of Ukraine, adding to the criminal population there. Summer “tours” to Crimea this year have become problematic due to the changed geopolitical situation.
Migration of drug trafficking. The effective tough policy of the DPR and LPR rebels towards drug dealers contributed to their displacement to neighboring regions, including Kyiv. The clients of these drug dealers are the same “gopniks” who rob women, old people and children on the street for their daily dose. Moreover, there is even an objective relationship between the availability of ready-made drugs in the retail network and crimes committed. If for some reason there are no drugs at the point of sale, then these days the number of street crimes and burglaries is reduced significantly - there is no point in robbing and stealing, you can’t buy drugs anyway.
Ambiguity of the motive of the crime. In post-revolutionary Kyiv, where almost everyone considers himself a fighter against all kinds of evil, a crime can begin on the basis of political, national-ethnic or religious disagreements and contradictions, continue with a banal fight, and end with the expropriation of the personal property of a defeated opponent. These actions are also qualified according to the Criminal Code of Ukraine as robbery or even robbery, depending on the category of severity of bodily harm caused to the victim.
Forced replacement of law enforcement functions of state bodies with all kinds of self-defense units also generally does not lead to anything good. The overwhelming majority of members of such formations are legally illiterate, they themselves have repeatedly been in conflict with the law, they make decisions on the spot not on the basis of current legislation, but obeying the herd feeling, emotions and their own idea of justice, representing the justice of the Middle Ages.
To summarize: no matter how hard the Ukrainian propaganda organs try, there are no real reasons for improving the crime situation in the near future, and soon weapons in the hands of demobilized “ATO veterans” will only add blood and victims to the daily reports of the Kyiv Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
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