By Iain Lauchlan

This book explores the origins, structure, and activities of the Okhrana, the secret police in Tsarist Russia and discusses the comparison of security policing in Russia and the West, as well as the role of the Okhrana in suppressing revolution and counter-revolutionary activities. It also examines the connections between the Okhrana and right-wing terror groups, as well as its interactions with civil society and military intelligence.The author uses various sources, including archival documents and personal memoirs, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Okhrana’s operations.

The book concludes with some remarks on the predictable downfall of Imperial Russia.A bibliography and index are included.

SKS-FLS, 2002, 405 pages

By Mike Males

California is not “defunding the police” nor implementing lenient criminal justice reforms – just the opposite. State spending on law enforcement has risen sharply, even after adjustments for inflation and population growth. The odds of being imprisoned per arrest have risen to near-record heights. However, despite record spending on California law enforcement agencies in recent years, one of the core measures of law enforcement effectiveness— crime clearance rates — has fallen to historically low levels. An agency’s clearance rate is the share of Part I violent and property crimes2 that are considered solved after law enforcement makes an arrest. Over the past three decades, these clearance rates fell by 41%, from a 22.3% clearance rate in 1990 to 13.2% in 2022, which equates to fewer than one in seven crimes solved (Figure 1, Table 1). California’s decline in overall clearance rates has been driven by falling property felony clearances (-59%), though the solve rate for violent felonies also fell during the 1990 – 2022 period (-14%).

San Francisco, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. 2024, 8pg