CRIME AND JUSTICE
Crime
The country's most widely quoted authorities on crime view it as a social phenomenon, that is, actions by people within society against the interests of the society as a whole or against the principles directing it. Combating crime, therefore, becomes a matter both of law enforcement and of social edification and persuasion. Although they adhere to the argument that in a developing communist society most of the crime is related to holdover attitudes from the old society and to unavoidable contacts with such societies still existing, they do not expect to eradicate crime according to any existing timetable.
Petty crime is an irritant to the leadership, not so much for the damage or lasting effects of the individual criminal acts, but because such acts reflect an attitude on the part of the perpetrators indicating that they hold the society, if not in ridicule or contempt, at least in less than proper respect. Such attitudes prompted an official in the Ministry of Internal Affairs to state, "Social democracy does not take a conciliatory attitude toward petty criminals, or tolerate individuals who disturb the public order or who are engaged in a parasitical life." The actual amount of petty crime is less worrisome to the authorities than the fact that it is increasing. Also disturbing are statistics showing that most of those apprehended for it are in the eighteen-to-thirty-year age-group.
Authorities have found themselves facing a problem in relation to petty crime that is in no way unique to Bulgaria. Misuse of government property, including theft and pilfering, has become rampant and is considered forgivable by those who are guilty because "everybody does it." The courts have become reluctant to hand down harsh sentences upon people who consider that they have done no wrong and, at least in the opinion of some government spokesmen, lenient court sentences have helped foster a view that theft of public property is wrong only because it is so described in certain of the laws.
The authorities also point out that statistics accumulated on such thefts reported in 1970 are revealing in other respects. Almost 90 percent of those recorded fell into the category of petty crime, but about one-half of them were carried out by overcoming locks or other barriers protecting the property. Over one-half of the persons apprehended for such thefts were repeaters. Analysis of other records also indicated that in all but a very few cases the most serious crimes were committed by individuals who had begun their criminal careers by stealing.
At the same time the courts were handing down sentences of the minimum punishment for theft or even less than the prescribed minimum. More often than not, the culprits were given suspended sentences. Of those convicted of serious theft, less than one-half were sentenced to a period of deprivation of freedom considered appropriate—that is, the six months or more prescribed in the criminal code.
More serious are the crimes of violence, political crimes, and economic crimes involving abuse of management positions or large amounts of property. In the period since the mid-1950s crimes of violence have increased; political and serious economic crimes have decreased.
Citizens convicted of political crimes no longer constitute the bulk of the prison population, as they did during the early post-World War II period. Active or aggressively vocal opposition to the regime is usually called ideological subversion, diversion, or revisionism, and it is described as activity or expression of thoughts related to the old society and not in accord with the policies of the new. It is still listed among the more serious crimes. Officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs blame both external influences and dissident internal factions for having caused the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and the Czechoslovak troubles in 1968. They say, however, that such events are unlikely in Bulgaria because the ministry's state security agencies are busy combating foreign intelligence efforts and the native elements that would bore from within. The success of their efforts is credited with having reduced political trials to only a few each year.
Economic crimes include those of dishonest or illegal operation of an enterprise, the misuse of socialist property by its management or workers, currency manipulations, and improper sale or transfer of property. If inefficient management practices are serious enough to result in less than optimum production, they are considered criminal, but sufficient guilt has been difficult to prove, and those accused are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. They are occasionally reprimanded, transferred, or dismissed for bureaucratic practices. Management personnel who are brought before the courts are usually tried for corruption, using their positions for personal enrichment, or violation of administrative or financial regulations.