Fight criminals, but not the crime: institutional analysis of the Russian law enforcement system

In July 2012, Lauren McCarty (University of Massachusetts Amherst) has presented the results of her research on human trafficking in Russia, conducted in 2007-2009.

The problem is studied from the point of view of law enforcement in general, its existing practices and the structure of motivation. In particular, human trafficking in Russia is often seen as a consequence of corruption - Lauren MacCarthy shows that some characteristics of the law enforcement system,  not related to corruption, are more important. Separation of investigation and prosecution creates a situation in which no one deals with a case from the beginning to the end and so no one is actually responsible for it. Along with the promotion system, based on the number of solved cases which encourages conservative and cautious attitude towards new approaches, this complicates the proper investigation of cases related to human trafficking.

McCarty_article

The approach itself (institutional analysis of law appliance), the main hypotheses and results of the research were presented at the seminar. The event was held in an interactive format encouraging questions and discussion.