The Geography of Crime and Punishment in the Russian Federation

Abstract

A UK-based team of two geographers and a criminologist presents the results of its ongoing investigation of the geography of Russia's prison system, which in 2011 is in the early stages of transition from housing inmates in communal barracks (regardless of the severity of their crimes) to one more similar to that in the United States, in which facilities are differentiated to accommodate the entire spectrum of inmates from those housed in maximum security prisons (cellblocks) to minimum security institutions ("colony settlements"). The authors seek to determine whether a Soviet-era spatial bias in the location of facilities persists in present-day Russia by comparing the location of prisons across regions with the distribution of the country's population as well as the per capita incidence of recorded crimes and serious crimes. Journal of Economic Literature,