NCJ Number
119353
Date Published
1989
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Based on an analysis of immigrants to the United States from the Soviet Union since the early 1970's, the author contends that immigrants bring with them their own moral codes and do not change their understanding, behavior, and actions as a result of immigration.
Abstract
The Soviet immigrant is one who has lived within a totally bureaucratic system and who has relied on the government for access to all goods and services. The immigrant is classified as a survivor or conniver. While in the Soviet Union, the survivor elected to beat the system in order to live within a system that had limited access to goods and services; the conniver elected to use the system to profit substantially. Soviet immigrants exemplify several areas of criminality in a technological and industrialized society. The first area involves the manipulation of personal identification papers, a kind of crime that demonstrates how extralegal behavior can be imported along with the immigrant. The second and third areas, nationalization and internationalization of crime, demonstrate how skills already honed in a repressive bureaucratic society can flourish when immigrants are allowed access to a multijurisdictional, less repressive new society. 2 references.