Stop criminality and anarchy

Organized crime still controls the biggest part of the Russian economy. Three million crimes were registered in Russia last year, and over 30 thousand citizens went missing. “Murders, kidnappings, assaults, and plundering are becoming common facts of our present lives. The most important objective for the government and for the law-enforcement bodies today is to stop the criminality and anarchy.”

President Putin talked about the struggle with criminality and corruption at today’s session at the Office of the Prosecutor General. In spite of the fact the president was on the whole satisfied with the work of the office, Putin said that the investigation of cases was very often of “low quality” and the investigation procedures are sometimes stopped because it is impossible to determine a criminal.

Putin pointed out the members of the business community, which are in the difficult situation at the moment: there is criminality within this community as well among the authorities that commit wrongful acts.

Putin thinks that it is expedient to lift the moratorium on the death penalty due to the unqualified investigation of the crimes and frequent mistakes of the investigation: “What’s the point in making the punishment tougher if we can not secure the inevitability of the punishment.

The main conclusion of Putin’s speech is the decision to hold a session of the presidential aids and the supervisors of the regional military structures in order to discuss certain steps for the improvement of the situation in the field of criminality.

In the meantime, the deputies of the Russian parliament have different attitude towards Putin’s statements, in particular regarding the cancellation of the death penalty moratorium. Mikhail Grishankov, the deputy chairman of the committee for security, stated that Russia was not ready for the taboo of capital punishment at present moment.

In addition, a meeting that is devoted to the issue of joining the European convention regarding the cancellation of the death penalty is to take place this week in the parliament. The discussion is going to be hot.

No matter what decision is made about the moratorium, the situation can be improved only owing to the efficient cooperation between the center and the regions, the federal military structures and law-enforcement bodies of the regional level, when the latter are subordinated to the first and the first will rely on the regional structures.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/02/11/36890.html