Individual Corruption

According to Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer 2010, the Russian police are considered to be the most corrupt public institution in the country. Similarly, in the US Department of State 2010, the national police force is characterised as widely corrupt, with few crackdowns on illegal police activity. Furthermore, according to the BRIBEline 2009, half of reported demands for bribes between 2007 and 2008 were from the police or the military. Demands for bribes are widespread particularly among the traffic police and patrol officers. Drivers that have been pulled over are accustomed to tucking in money with their papers when they hand them to officers. Moreover, although electronic traffic fine payments have been recently introduced as a way to reduce the number of bribes paid on the roads, it is reported that drivers continue to pay bribes to traffic police officers, mainly because it is time-consuming to wait in bank lines to pay the fines, according to a June 2010 article by The Moscow News.

In addition, there have been frequent reports of police extorting bribes to process registration applications and demanding them during spot checks for registration documentation, as cited in the US Department of State 2010.

According to First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buskman, approximately 14% of corruption cases take place in the area of law enforcement. This is supported by the figures from the Supreme Court, according to which, 31% of the officials imprisoned on corruption charges in 2008 were from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as reported in a 2009 article by Russia Today. According to President Medvedev, corruption cases investigated in the time frame January-June 2009 involved over 700 law enforcement officers.

In February 2011, following the January 2011 terror attack in Domodedovo airport, President Medvedev signed into law a bill that introduces vetting procedures for police officers as well as a salary increase, doubling the minimum pay to over USD 1,500 a month, according to a 2011 article by TrustLaw. Freedom House 2011 reports that Medvedev has left the top ranks of the law enforcement and security services largely unchanged, and there has been little progress on much-needed police reform.

According to a study by Transparency International, cited in a July 2011 article by INO-TV, Russian police laws have a number of loopholes, which open opportunities for corruption in this area. According to the article, currently Russian police officers have wide powers and possibilities for abuse of power, while, on the other hand, their responsibilities are not very clearly outlined and accountability is lacking. The study concludes that the largest risks of corruption by police officers occur in the process of document checks. The article also points out that Russia's laws on the police have not been through anti-corruption training.

Business Corruption

The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 reveals that companies identify Russia as performing poorly in relation to the reliability of police services to protect them from crime. This is corroborated by the World Bank & IFC Enterprise Surveys 2009, which reveals that the majority of the surveyed companies pay for security in Russia, while a smaller part identifies crime, theft and disorder as major constraints to doing business in the country. Many companies report paying protection money to the police or to security companies as a necessary business expense.

In December 2008, the State Duma passed in its third reading a bill intended to reduce the multitude of inspections and red tape that companies are subjected to. The bill seeks to further limit the number and total duration of planned state inspections of a company, as well as banning law enforcement agencies from carrying out tax inspections without a request from tax authorities and from confiscating documents without providing companies with stamped photocopies, according to a December 2008 press release by the State Duma. 

Political Corruption

Corruption within the Russian police force permeates also the higher echelons of this institution. According to Global Integrity 2010, the investigative and enforcement work of Russian police is commonly influenced by political actors or the government. In regards to appointments to the police, these are usually based on political considerations; individuals appointed often have conflicts of interest due to personal or party loyalties, or family connections. Furthermore, in practice, law enforcement officers, particularly high-ranking figures, sometimes enjoy protection from criminal investigations.

A teacher at the Interior Ministry Law Institute of Tyumen, Igor Groshev, was sacked and sued after he revealed pervasive bribery by cadets at the Institute in 2006. The court found Groshev guilty of damaging the 'professional reputation' of the school. Groshev is still appealing the court verdict in higher instances, but experts in Russia believe that he does not have much of a chance, according to a 2009 article by CBS News.

In November 2009, Major Alexei Dymovsky, a Russian police officer from Novorossiysk, released a series of videos accusing senior police officers of corruption and appealing to Prime Minister Putin to tackle corruption in the police force. As a result of this appeal, Major Dymovsky was sacked and later prosecuted for abuse of office, according to a December 2009 article by Reuters. Regional police conducted their own investigation after the videos were released, which they said did not back up Dymovsky's allegations. In January 2010, Dymovsky was arrested on charges of fraud and corruption which carry a maximum of six years in prison, as reported in a January 2010 article by BBC News. However, he was later released from the detention centre under an oath not to leave the country. This case raises the suspicion of criminal charges being used as an instrumental weapon against critical voices.

In December 2009, President Medvedev removed the head of the tax-crimes unit in the Moscow police department, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Mikhalkin, alleged by the investment fund Hermitage Capital to be a key figure in criminal probes against the fund and to be implicated in a USD 230 million tax fraud, according to a 2009 article by The Wall Street Journal. The fund claims to have exposed a tax fraud that allegedly implicated the police, members of the judiciary, and tax officials. Consequently, the lawyer who investigated the tax fraud for Hermitage, Sergei Magnitsky, was detained on charges of tax evasion. Magnitsky died in pretrial detention in November 2009, and representatives of the Russian business and legal community as well as civil society actors have interpreted his arrest as a way to silence attempts to expose corruption in the country. In August 2011, Russian investigators were ordered to reopen the case of Magnitsky, which had been closed after his death in police custody, according to a 2011 article by RIA Novosti.

In an effort to stamp out corruption, in December 2009, President Medvedev signed a decree to streamline the law enforcement structure, in particular, ordering a 20% staff cut before January 2012 and instituting the rotation of senior personnel at the Interior Ministry, according to a December 2009 article by RIA Novosti. These redundancies will be balanced with higher salaries for those police officers that will survive the reform, making them less susceptible to bribery. In February 2010, Medvedev dismissed two deputy interior ministers and 15 other top officials as part of the anti-corruption campaign. Also, a top anti-corruption police chief, Alexander Bokov, was arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on charges of extorting USD 46 million from a businessman. In August 2011, Medvedev ordered the country's secret services to publish online disclosures to make their activities more transparent and accessible for citizens, as reported in a 2011 article by Bloomberg.

Frequency

World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012:
- Business executives give the reliability of Russian police services to enforce law and order a score of 2.6 on a 7-point scale (1 'cannot be relied upon at all' and 7 'can always be relied upon').

Levada Centre Poll 2010 cited in Agence France-Presse:

- 67% of citizens surveyed report that they fear the police.

- 77% of citizens surveyed report they do not feel safe against arbitrary police behaviour.

Transparency International: Global Corruption Barometer 2010:
- 27.7% of households who had contact with the police in 2009 report having paid a bribe.

- On average, citizens give the police a score of 3.9 on a 5-point scale (1 'not at all corrupt' and 5 'extremely corrupt').

The World Bank & IFC: Enterprise Surveys 2009:
- More than 77% of the surveyed companies pay for security in Russia.

- Over 38% of companies surveyed identify crime, theft and disorder as a major constraint on doing business in Russia.