Crime in Moldova, as everywhere in former Soviet republics, has risen dramatically since the demise of the Soviet Union. Economic and drug-related crimes, the most visible and predictable results of the deteriorating economic situations in the newly independent countries, have simply overwhelmed the human and financial resources devoted to them. Often, however, the problem is more extensive than what is acknowledged: many crimes are not registered. For example, in mid-1995, the Moldovan government stated that overall crime in Moldova had risen by 29 percent over the previous year. However, the number of motorbikes and motor vehicles "being searched for" was thirteen times the number of vehicles listed as "stolen." Illicit cultivation of opium poppies and cannabis is carried out in Moldova, mainly for consumption in CIS countries. In addition, Moldova is a transshipment point for illegal drugs to Western Europe.

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The best historical treatments of Moldova in the pre-Soviet period are still found in general treatments of Romania. Particularly useful works include Vlad Georgescu's The Romanians, R.W. Seton-Watson's A History of the Roumanians, and Barbara Jelavich's History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Older, yet still useful, works focusing on Bessarabia are Charles Upson Clark's Bessarabia: Russia and Romania on the Black Sea and Andrei Popovici's The Political Status of Bessarabia.

Much of the available information on the Soviet period is found in general works on nationalities in the former Soviet Union, such as James H. Bater's The Soviet Scene: A Geographical Perspective Mikhail Bernstam's "The Demography of Soviet Ethnic Groups in World Perspective," in The Last Empire: Nationality and the Soviet Future, edited by Robert Conquest Social Trends in the Soviet Union from 1950 by Michael Ryan and Richard Prentice and Viktor Kozlov's The Peoples of the Soviet Union. Sherman David Spector's "The Moldavian S.S.R., 1964-1974," in Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, edited by George W. Simmonds, provides more specific information concerning overall conditions in Moldova. Michael Bruchis's Nations, Nationalities, People: A Study of the Nationalities Policy of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldavia is an interesting and useful account of the implementation of the Soviet nationalities policy in Moldova by an intimate observer of the process. For the politics of language in Moldavia during the Soviet period, see The USSR: Language and Realities: Nations, Leaders, and Scholars and One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: On the Language Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the National Republics, both also by Michael Bruchis.

The following are useful works on the transition period and current conditions (several also include sections on the preSoviet and Soviet periods): William Crowther's "Romania and Moldavian Political Dynamics" in Romania after Tyranny, edited by Daniel Nelson Nicholas Dima's From Mol6d8 oldavia to Moldova: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute "The Politics of Ethnonational Mobilization: Nationalism and Reform in Soviet Moldavia," also by Crowther, in Russian Review Nicolas Dima's "The Soviet Political Upheaval of the 1980s: The Case of Moldova" in Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies Dima's "Recent Changes in Soviet Moldavia," in the East European Quarterly Darya Fane's "Moldova: Breaking Loose From Moscow," in Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States Jonathan Eyal's "Moldovans," in The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union, edited by Graham Smith and Charles King's "Moldova and the New Bessarabian Question" in World Today. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)

Data as of June 1995