The Embeddedness of Criminal and Prison Practices in the Culture of Contemporary Russian Society

Abstract

This paper examines criminal and prison cultural practices embedded in the culture of contemporary Russian society. The paper analyzes the culture of Russian adults and youths as basically conditioned by criminal and prison culture. The prevalence of prison and criminal culture in society as a whole is observed through the spreading of thieves' jargon, prison songs and other criminal practices and norms that influence Russian society. The usage of criminal jargon by adults and youths in a ‘regular’ cultural context of is one of the most evident forms of popularity of prison culture. The usage of criminal jargon in public by Russian politicians is one of the factors which may increase their popularity. The author relies on the data from the survey conducted by A. Taybakov, which demonstrates that 45% of regular Russians use criminal jargon in their everyday language. The so-called ‘Russian Chanson’ (songs of the criminals) enjoys popularity among Russians. The survey data by A. Taybakov demonstrates that 33% of Russians listen to criminal songs of such kind. The ‘Chanson Radio’ station that basically features criminal songs is the fifth among 41 Moscow radio stations in the popularity list. The analysis conducted by A. Taybakov reveals that 28% of ordinary Russians and 33% of Russian police officers consider the so-called ‘ponyatiya’ (informal principles or criminal code of conduct) suitable for regulating everyday relations of Russian society. The prison and criminal culture influences youth culture to a great extent. This can be proven by analyzing juvenile and youth slang as well as behavioral and cultural attitudes of the youths. In many respects, the wave of juvenile street gangs that started after the 1960s in Russia can be considered as the consequence of the spreading of the adult prison culture and basically represents criminal norms and traditions. ‘I live by criminal code of conduct (‘po ponyatiyam’) and won’t tell you anything’ – that was the answer of a regular Russian high school student, when the author asked to do a research interview with him. Students in Russian secondary and high schools are divided hierarchically into castes, which very much resemble the hierarchical system in prison. They use the same kind of prison culture nicknames and use criminal jargon even more often than adults do. The research and personal interviews conducted by the author demonstrates that secondary and high school students actively practice mutual aid popular in the criminal world, known as ‘obshchag’, when money and other products are collected for incarcerated individuals from the criminal community. Practices of the Russian Army’s ‘dedovshchina’ (physical and psychological abuse of new recruits in the army) that have overall and often mortal character also represent prison traditions and norms. The author comes to a conclusion that some of the basic factors of the prison and criminal culture prevalence in Russia are derived from the peculiarities of Russian incarceration system. Prisoners are housed in large groups, so newcomers very easily learn prison criminal law and patterns. Russian prison culture has total sway inside prisons with high authority of ‘vory v zakone’ (leaders in the criminal world), so that the newcomers have to submit to the informal system of authority and live by its rules. After their discharge the prisoners bring these patterns of behavior into regular social practices. The author emphasizes on a similarity between a prison and a regular Russian school. In secondary and high schools students often have no chance to avoid prison/criminal patterns and behavior pressure from the delinquent leaders of the class who are usually the representatives of prison culture. Due to the fact that criminal and prison cultures has total influence in schools and prisons, the administration has no influence on the environment inside the given institutions. The prison culture prevalence in Russia also affects the repressive system of criminal penalty, bearing in mind that sizeable numbers of people have been imprisoned. The data, provided by K. Mitupov suggests that from the 1960s to 1990s over 73 million people were incarcerated in Russia; and before the 1960s millions had been through (or died in) the GULAG camps during the massive Stalinist repressions