Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 5 – Federal subjects in the Urals region of the Russian Federation lead that country in terms of both recidivism and violent crime, a pattern police say reflects the presence of so many people who were sent to the GULAG as well as their descendants and rapidly intensifying social problems, including the widespread availability of guns.
The Russian interior ministry has released figures on recidivism rates and violent crime in the federal subjects of the Russian Federation. The oblasts and krays of the enormous Urals Federal District lead the country in both rankings, the data show, often by wide margins (svpressa.ru/society/article/501426/).
The explanation for this pattern is simple, current and former MVD officials there say. On the one hand, they say, the presence in the region’s population of many who were dispatched to the GULAG or otherwise deported and later to prison camps means a large portion of the population suffers from grievances and is used to viewing law enforcement as the enemy.
On the other, they say, the region has a high rate of gun ownership because so many trophy guns have ended up there, something that has intensified in recent years, and is suffering from increasing poverty and even more from a widening gap between the wealthiest and the poorest elements of society, characteristics that feed grievance and violence as well.
What is a particular problem, one former MVD officer says, is that those who have been released from prisons in recent years typically remain unemployed. According to data from 2025, “more than 60 percent of former inmates remain unemployed in the course of the first year after they are released.” Such people often turn to crime to make ends meet.
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