Read more
Criminals, Nazis, and Islamists provides an authoritative overview of prisoner organizations in Russia from Soviet times to the present. It shows how the Vory criminal organization, the earliest prison gang, came to dominate Russian prisons over the course of the twentieth century and establish its own unique form of internal prison governance. After the fall of Soviet Union, new criminal organizations--Islamists, Neo Nazis, and others behind bars across the former Soviet Union--began challenging the Vory. The book shows what happens when they take power inside particular prisons and have to govern themselves. Not just about Russian prisons, this book also sheds light on Soviet and post-Soviet society
List of contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Theory
- 2. History of the Vory Criminal Organization
- 3. Prison Criminal Leadership
- 4. Lower Class of Inmates
- 5. Prison Criminal Law Enforcement
- 6. Prison Criminal Economy
- 7. Everyday Life Behind Bars
- 8. Conflict with Prison Authorities: Getting Power
- 9. Conflict with Prison Authorities: Losing Power
- 10 Problems within the Vory Criminal Organization
- 11. Prison Islamist Jamaats
- 12. Islamist Jamaat Rise to Power
- 13. Jamaat Conflict with the Criminal Organization
- 14. Vory Criminal Organization Resurgence
- 15. Neo-Nazis Behind Bars
- Conclusion
About the author
Vera Mironova, PhD, is an Associate Fellow at Harvard University and is famous for her extensive in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with armed groups in active conflict zones, terrorist sleeping cells, and criminal organizations. She conducted fieldwork in numerous active conflict zones and post-conflict regions all over the world including in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, DRC Congo, and Azerbaijan. From 2016 to 2017, she was embedded with Iraqi Special Operations Forces during the Mosul Operation and before that, with ultra-right Ukrainian armed groups in Donbas. And since 2018 she conducted extensive interviews with members of criminal organizations in former Soviet Union. She is an author of the award-winning book From Freedom Fighters to Jihadists. Human Resources of Non-State Armed Groups (Oxford 2019).
Summary
In Criminals, Nazis, and Islamists, Vera Mironova examines conflicts and cooperation between inmates in male prisons in the former Soviet Union. She begins by focusing on the earliest prisoner groups, in particular the Vory criminal organization, which began in the 1930s. The Vory were able to develop rules, norms, and unique criminal ideology to ensure their monopoly in prison internal governance. Not only did they establish control over inmates, the Vory
also successfully stood up against prison authorities to make inmates life behind bars as comfortable as possible, and as a consequence ensured its own survival in power. Mironova also explains how the Vory uses different methods, from strikes to bloody riots, to put pressure on prison leadership.
The fall of Soviet Union in 1990 saw an explosion of entrepreneurial criminal organizations, and the Vory started losing their grip on prisons. This book reviews how Islamists, Neo Nazis, and other major organizations behind bars across the former Soviet Union are currently challenging the Vory and what happens when they take power inside particular prisons and have to govern themselves. By focusing on the margins of Russian life, Mironova offers a unique perspective on the social
transformations impacting both the USSR and the post-Soviet space from the 1930s to the Putin era.
