Policing Drug Users in Russia
Risk, Fear, and Structural Violence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23364008 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anya Sarang (Federal Agency for Health and Social Development), Tammy Rhodes (0000-0003-2400-9838, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, corresponding author), Tim Rhodes, Nicolas Sheon (University of California, San Francisco), Kimberly Page (0000-0002-7120-1673, University of California, San Francisco) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 813-864 |
| Publication date | 2010-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Substance Use & Misuse (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1082-6084 • E-ISSN: 1532-2491 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3109/10826081003590938 |
| PMID | 20397872 |
| PMCID | PMC2946846 |
| OpenAlex | W2030115485 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 65 |
| References cited | 38 |
We undertook qualitative interviews with 209 injecting drug users (IDUs) (primarily heroin) in three Russian cities: Moscow, Barnaul, and Volgograd. We explored IDU's accounts of HIV and health risk. Policing practices and how these violate health and self, emerged as a primary theme. Findings show that policing practices violate health and rights directly, but also indirectly, through the reproduction of social suffering. Extrajudicial policing practices produce fear and terror in the day-to-day lives of drug injectors, and ranged from the mundane (arrest without legal justification; the planting of evidence to expedite arrest or detainment; and the extortion of money or drugs for police gain) to the extreme (physical violence as a means of facilitating "confession" and as an act of "moral" punishment without legal cause or rationale; the use of methods of "torture"; and rape). We identify the concept of police bespredel-living with the sense that there are "no limits" to police power-as a key to perpetuating fear and terror, internalized stigma, and a sense of fatalist risk acceptance. Police besprediel is analyzed as a form of structural violence, contributing to "oppression illness." Yet, we also identify cases of resistance to such oppression, characterized by strategies to preserve dignity and hope. We identify hope for change as a resource of risk reduction as well as escape, if only temporarily, from the pervasiveness of social suffering. Future drug use(r)-related policies, and the state responses they sponsor, should set out to promote public health while protecting human rights, hope, and dignity.
Confession (law) · Criminology · Dignity · Human rights · Oppression · Political science · Sociology · Torture · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Sex work and related issues
From actors to practices
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| Unique citing works | 65 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,06 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2026 (17) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 60 |