Russian Teenagers Commit 140 Thousand Crimes in 2002

About 140 thousand crimes committed by teenagers were registered in Russia in 2002. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, this was announced at a briefing yesterday by acting Head of the Organised Crime Department Valery Komarov. He added that these crimes have accounted for about 9% of the total number of crimes over the last three years.

Mr Komarov pointed out that the number of serious and extremely serious crimes accounts for between 73% and 80% of the total number of teenage crimes. He said that the rising number of gang offences among teenagers is particularly worrying. Moreover, the rate of recurrent crime rose among teenagers in 2002.

Mr Komarov said that due to the spread of unofficial youth movements in 2002 the Russian Interior Ministry's criminal investigation department has created a special sub-division to investigate teenage crimes. Such sub-divisions have been created in many regions of Russia. Their main aims are to prevent the spread of crime among teenagers and to work with crime-oriented youth movements.