Citation

Pridemore WA. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 2003; 19(1): 41-59.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, European Consortium for Sociological Research, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Interpersonal violence increased dramatically in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In this article, newly available arrest data from the Russian Ministry of the Interior and vital statistics data from the Russian State Committee for Statistics are employed in order to examine the demographic, temporal, and spatial patterns of homicide rates in the country. Among other findings, analyses reveal (1) homicide victimization rates in Russia are comparable to and/or greater than the high rates in the United States for at least the last 35 years; (2) a sudden decrease in homicide rates in the mid-1980s, followed by a sharp increase in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulting in a Russian homicide victimization rate that is 15-20 times higher than in most European nations; (3) a strikingly different age pattern of homicide victimization rates as compared to the USA; and (4) a wide range of variation in homicide rates throughout the country, including a curious pattern of increasing rates from west to east.