Be careful out there as street crime seems to be on the rise.
When it comes to crime, spring and economic crisis are mixing unhappily on Kyiv’s streets.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko said that street crime rose 12 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from the previous year. Lutsenko linked the rise directly to growing unemployment, amnesties of convicts and the return of migrant workers from Western Europe.
“It is apparent that many people who have lost their income are now choosing a criminal way to earn their living,” Lutsenko told journalists recently. He said that the Interior Ministry had increased the number of police units and sent officers to problem regions, such as Donetsk Oblast.
Volodymyr Polishchuk, spokesperson for the Kyiv police, said the city is, indeed, experiencing a rise in crime. “The growth is connected with serious inflow of people, who come to Kyiv from depressive regions, where enterprises and factories are [hibernating],” Polishchuk said. He said that 35 percent of all crimes are committed by non-Kyiv natives.
In Kyiv, street crimes – like petty theft and wallet robberies – are up 15 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same 2008 period, according to Polishchuk. But the total number of crimes registered in the capital remains on par with last year, about 3,500 each week. Car and apartment thefts, as well as murders, are down, Polishchuk added.
Edward Korol, a business manager in Kyiv, said he’s noted that the situation has gotten worse. He’s changed his behavior as a result. “I try to avoid walking alone after it gets dark, after several of my friends got seriously mugged. I don’t feel safe on the streets of Kyiv anymore,” Korol said.
Last month, the U.S. embassy sounded the alarm to be careful around well-known expatriate hangouts. “Private U.S. citizens resident in or visiting Kyiv have reported seven violent criminal assaults directed against foreign nationals by a gang of street criminals,” the warning said. “These reported activities have occurred in and around the areas surrounding O’Brien’s Pub and the Hyatt Hotel in Kyiv.”
The embassy advised all U.S. citizens in Kyiv “to exercise an increased level of security awareness and to regularly review personal security measures.”
Compounding the crimes, the U.S. embassy said, is police indifference.
“In some cases of crimes against American citizens, the U.S. embassy noticed an unwillingness of local law enforcement to become engaged in helping the victim or finding the perpetrator,” said Oleksandr Kleshch, a U.S. embassy spokesman.
As almost any expatriate walking around central Kyiv learns quickly, foreigners are preyed upon with various scams, raising suspicions that police officers are either in cahoots with the criminals or simply don’t care. Violent muggings are much rarer.
The criminals seem to be equal-opportunity offenders. Not just white, rich-looking foreigners are targeted. Ukrainians, of course, are by far the most frequent victims based on their sheer numbers alone.
Human rights groups are, however, worried that racial crimes are on the rise.
“The economic crisis can become a catalyst of racial intolerance and xenophobia, as there has to be a scapegoat in all difficult situations,” Vyacheslav Kantor, president of European Jewish Congress, told a recent conference entitled “Building Together the Future of Europe.”
Vyacheslav Lykhachev, a member of the public union Congress of National Communities of Ukraine, said that “since the end of March there have been more racial crimes committed in Kyiv than in the whole period of the previous three-four months.”
Lykhachev blames extremist groups more than economic conditions. “Racial crimes are not done by factory workers or businessmen who lost their jobs and view foreigners as a potential competitor. It’s done by manipulated, extremist youth groups,” Lykhachev said.
Lykhachev noted that racial tensions also grew during the so-called economic boom times, before last year’s crash.
Many human rights groups have stopped relying on official police statistics.
Volodymyr Yavorskiy, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki human rights group, said the nation simply doesn’t want to confront the problem. “There is only one article of the criminal code, which deals with hate crimes, and according to which, it’s [almost] impossible to convict of a racial crime,” Yavorskiy said. “For the last nine years, there have been six convictions for an actual hate crime.”
If the streets are becoming more dangerous, not everything at home is bliss, either.
Incidents of domestic violence are another poorly quantified category by crime-watchers. But the view among some human rights groups and psychological assistance centers is that these crimes are on the rise also, exacerbated by economic stress.
“The numbers of people who have suffered domestic violence, who come to us, have increased by about 20 percent in the last several months, “, said Lyudmila Krupchynska, director of Kyiv’s state-run Center of Social-Psychological Assistance. “Growing unemployment is the most popular cause, with low moral standards lying at the root of problem.”
Ordered to knock down the crime wave, law enforcement authorities say they have responded with increased numbers of officers on streets and other measures. “We are adequately reacting to the situation, strengthening and expanding our units,” said Hennadiy Hrebnyov, deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s public affairs office.
Kyiv police say they are doing the same. “We are increasing the number of auto patrol units. We intensified control over people who rent apartments in Kyiv, etc.,” said Polishchuk, the Kyiv police spokesman.
“The list is long, but only 10-15 percent of the success in elimination of this problem [crime growth] depends on police. It’s the mentality that has to change, economic problems that have to be solved and a legislative base that has to be perfected,” said Polishchuk, calling for better cooperation between police and citizens.
Lutsenko put the challenge this way: “In general, we are being tasked to prevent the disorder of the 1990s from returning to Ukraine’s streets. I am absolutely confident that we will fulfill this task.”
