The World : Soviet Crime Rate Up 17%

The Soviet crime rate rose nearly 17% last year as President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform programs unwittingly contributed to a rash of assaults, robberies and thefts, according to an interview in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda. Interior Minister Vadim V. Bakatin noted that attacks on police increased and street crime rose by more than 40%. He said that Gorbachev’s reforms, while making Soviet society more open, created “complicated, at times painful processes of self-cleansing, an increase in civil and ethnic self-awareness.” He cited Latvia and Estonia as specific examples of the latter and added that many criminals released from labor camps under legal reforms have been unable to find work because state industries are cutting back and some have returned to crime.