Yesterday, I’ve posted Vitaly Mantrov’s article on the Russian-language Tajik blog about criminalization of Tajik society and the replacement of old generation of criminals by younger generation. Here is the translation of that article.

Vitaly argues that the crime in Central Asia, including Tajikistan, is “rejuvenating”. The old generation of criminals (Old Gangsters) have properly arranged their lives and started to live according to new rules – the legal ones, not the criminal. However, the criminal pursuits are acquired by younger generation, mostly students in high schools and universities.

The representatives of law enforcement bodies admit that the crime rate in Dushanbe among the adolescent is increasing. 504 crimes were committed within 9 months in 2006. 246 of crimes were committed by the young criminals in organized groups.

For a piece of bread

The head of the local NGO “Avrora” Sabohat Alimova says that the prime cause of high crime rate is poverty, which is not the fault of the youngsters, but the government. “What do they usually steal?” “In most of the cases it is food”, - reports Sabohat on the results of the survey on “who is put in jails?”. These are mostly children from partial families, who wanted to support their younger siblings”.

Worse than in jail

Farhat was put in jail because he was irritated by the sound of his neighbor’s water pump. It was very loud. He damaged the pump and his neighbor complained to local militia. Farhat claims that he was put in jail not on the fact of hooliganism but on theft offence. There are mostly young people in jails. You living conditions can be not worse than on the loose if you have enough money. According to Farhat in Tajik jail one can buy narcotics without any problem: “Outside the jail heroin is mixed with something, but inside you can have the pure one”.

So long as Farhat had money in jail, his life was good enough. Now he is released and he understood how hard it is to bare the label of “former prisoner”. “Neighbors are looking asquint at you as if you are a second or third sort of human-being” - regrets Farhat that he was in jail.

When Farhat was released from the jail he found a situation in the local textile factory. But later the administration asked him to bring some documents and he brought them. He was immediately fired. There was found in the documents a mark “convicted”.

A trip to jail

The head of NGO “Avrora” Sabohat Alimova, thinks that the youngsters will continue committing crimes, if the government does not take relevant measures.

The chief authorized operations officer on affairs of special importance Shirinbek Mirzoev, states that the law-enforcement bodies have some programs on crime prevention among the youngsters. “We make special presentations for the juveniles in schools, universities and colleges. We tell them about the articles in Criminal Code which are related to juveniles”, - says Mirzoev.

The representative of UNICEF in Tajikistan, Furkat Lutfulloev thinks that the activity of law enforcements bodies related to the juviniles is not effective. “According to the minimum standards, if the committed crime does not cause a serious harm to the community, then the youngster should not be isolated, meaning that the child should not be deprived of freedom”. Lutfulloev says that there should be established a new department for the work with the youngsters.