In 2023, the crime rate in Russia reached approximately 1,300 offenses per 100,000 population, marking a slight decrease compared to the previous year. Over the period from 2015 to 2023, the rate saw a decline by 303 registered crimes per 100,000 people. What are the most common offenses in Russia? Fraud and theft are the most frequent types of crime in Russia. New types of fraud emerged with the development of digital banking, including crimes related to personal data thefts, access to bank accounts, and unauthorized payment card transactions. Approximately 40 percent of crimes in Russia are of little gravity. Criminals’ profile The largest share of people who committed offenses in Russia are aged between 30 and 49 years, among both genders. While most criminals in the country finished up to nine school classes, more than one third of all perpetrators received a secondary professional education. Furthermore, among female criminals, over 15 percent are university graduates.

The homicide rate in Russia reached *** homicides per 100,000 population in 2023. The indicator has declined steadily since 2002, when it was measured at **** murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Over the years observed, the highest rate was recorded at **** homicides per 100,000 persons in 1994. Homicide in Russia The significant decrease in intentional homicides characterizes the general reduction in crime in Russia since the 1990s. However, murder remains one of the major causes of death in the country. In total, over 7,600 homicides and attempted homicides were recorded in Russia in 2022. Victims of homicide The number of male victims of homicide per 100,000 inhabitants in Russia was approximately ***** times higher than the murder rate of women. A United Nations study showed that while most people who were killed around the globe were men, women were most likely to be murdered by their partners, ex-partners, and family members.

Approximately 98 percent of female criminals in Russia in 2021 possessed a Russian passport. Among men who committed a crime in the country, nearly four percent had a nationality of another state or were classified as stateless persons.

Russia crime rate per 100K population for 2021 was 6.80, a 7.44% decline from 2020.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Russia crime rate per 100K population for 2020 was <strong>7.35</strong>, a <strong>4.43% decline</strong> from 2019.</li>
<li>Russia crime rate per 100K population for 2019 was <strong>7.69</strong>, a <strong>6.43% decline</strong> from 2018.</li>
<li>Russia crime rate per 100K population for 2018 was <strong>8.21</strong>, a <strong>10.12% decline</strong> from 2017.</li>
</ul>Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.

This dataset comprises information on reported criminal offences in Russia, both nationally and regionally, expressed in absolute numbers and as rates per 100,000 inhabitants, spanning the period from 2008 to 2023.

The contents of the dataset

Dataset has 12 385 rows and 5 columns. Keys for type of crimes:

• "Murder" - is the intentional causing of death of another person. Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Intentional Bodily Harm" - is the intentional infliction of a grave injury, which is hazardous for human life. Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Rape" - is a sexual intercourse with the use of violence or of a threat thereof, with respect to the victim or to other persons or with the use of a helpless state of the victim. Article 131 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Theft" - is the secret larceny of other people's property. Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Robbery without violence" - is the open stealing of other people's property. Article 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Robbery with violence" - is assault with the purpose of stealing other people's property, committed with violence which threatens human life and health or with the threat of using such violence. Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Extortion" - is the demand that other people's property or their right to property should be transferred, or that other acts of a property nature should be performed under threat of violence or of destruction or damage of other people's property, and also under the threat of dissemination of information that defames the victim or his relatives, or of any other information which may cause substantial harm to the rights or legitimate interests of the victim or his relatives. Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Hooliganism" - is a gross violation of the public order manifested in patent contempt of society and attended by the use of weapons or articles used as weapons; or by reason of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred. Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
• "Crimes in the Sphere of Economic Activity" - are acts that are criminally unlawful, deserving of censure, and socially harmful, which infringe upon the economic order and security of the state, as well as the legally established procedures for the production, distribution, and consumption of tangible goods and other economic assets, as well as exchange. Articles 169-200 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Acknowledgements

Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation

Historical dataset showing Russia crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2021.

Around 1.9 million crimes were registered by authorities in Russia in 2024, marking a slight decrease compared to the previous year. Over the observed period, the number of offenses recorded in Russia was significantly high at approximately 3.86 million cases in 2006, after which this figure saw a gradual decline.

In 2024, over 6,600 criminal offenses committed under drug intoxication were recorded by Russian law enforcement authorities. The number of such incidents has continuously declined since 2016, when offenders in over 28,000 crimes were under the influence of narcotic substances.

The most common type of crime committed on streets and in squares and parks of Russia was theft, having occupied 35 percent of the total offenses recorded in these areas in 2023. Road offenses accounted for approximately 22 percent of criminal acts committed outside.

In 2023, 24 people in Russia were convicted for public desecration of Russian military glory with the use of mass media or committed by an organized group. The total number of convictions for crimes committed against mankind in the country equaled 52 in that year.

Most crimes in Russia were registered in Moscow, where law enforcement authorities recorded approximately 134,000 offenses in 2023. In the Krasnodar Krai, around 74,500 criminal acts were observed.

Over 22,300 underage people committed crimes in Russia in 2022, down from roughly 26,300 in the previous year. The number of criminals under 18 years old gradually decreased in the country, compared to 72,700 recorded in 2010.

The dataset “Swedish Crime Fiction in Russian Translation: Editions, Corpus and Reviews” contains information about research data related to two different articles about Swedish crime fiction in Russia.

In 2023, there were 1,340 crimes related to extremism in Russia, down from 1,566 cases recorded in the previous year. The number of criminal cases in this category continuously increased between 2011 and 2017, ranging from 480 to 972 offenses of such nature registered by the country's law enforcement authorities.

Russia's female homicide rate was slightly below four crimes per 100 thousand population in 2019, marking a decline from 2015. That was more than three times lower than the number of male homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants. The total homicide rate in the country reached 4.7 per 100 thousand people in 2020.

The number of criminal offenses related to illegal arms trafficking in Russia amounted to around 10,700 in 2023, which was the lowest figure over the observed period. To compare, in 2020, 14,200 crimes of such nature were registered by Russian law enforcement authorities.

Nearly 178,000 drug trafficking offenses were registered in Russia in 2022, marking a decrease in the number of such offenses relative to the previous year. After a sharp decrease in drug-related crimes in the country between 2000 and 2005, their amount grew over the following decade, measuring at 236.9 thousand in 2015.

The number of economic fraud cases in Russia increased from slightly over 100 thousand to nearly *** thousand between the first half of 2018 and the first half of 2019. Nearly ** thousand crimes categorized as offenses in the sphere of economic activity were recorded over the first six months of 2019.

In countries like Russia, where legal institutions providing political accountability and protection of property rights are weak, some elite actors accept the use of violence as a tool in political and economic competition. The intensity of this violent exposure may vary depending on the position the province had had in the Soviet administrative hierarchy. The higher the province's position before 1991, the greater the intensity of business violence one is likely to observe there in post-communist times, because the Soviet collapse left a more gaping power vacuum and lack of working informal rules in regions with limited presence of traditional criminal organizations. Post-Soviet entrepreneurs also often find it worthwhile to run for office or financially back certain candidates in order to secure a privileged status and the ability to interpret the law in their favor. Businessmen-candidates themselves and their financial backers behind the scenes may become exposed to competitive pressures resulting in violence during election years, because their competitors may find it hard to secure their position in power through the existing legal or informal non-violent means. To test whether Soviet legacies and Provincial elections indeed cause spikes in commerce-motivated violence, this project relies on an original dataset of more than 6000 attacks involving business interests in 74 regions of Russia, in 1991–2010. The results show that only legislative elections cause increases in violence while there is no firm evidence that executive polls have a similar effect.

Since 2015, the number of criminal acts committed in Russia involving the use of firearms, gas weapons, ammunition, explosives, and explosive devices gradually decreased from one year to another, reaching 3.5 thousand crimes in 2021. To compare, at the beginning of the observed period, over five thousand offenses of this type were recorded across the country.