Half of Russians (49%) believe that it’s possible to live in Russia without breaking the law. The same number of people (47%) believe the opposite.
36% of Russians feel protected by the law, 58% do not. The share of those who do not feel protected by the law has been growing over the last 5 years and has now reached the level of 2010.
Russians aged 18-24 (32%) and 25-39 (31%) feel less protected by the law than others. Meanwhile people aged 55 and older feel protected much more (44%).
Most often, people do not feel protected by the law because laws are freely interpreted by the people in power (49%), because the laws do not control everyone (42%), because due to corruption one cannot expect a just trial in court (39%).
74% of Russians would agree that many government officials practically do not obey the law, 21% disagree. 10 years ago, this sentiment was shared by 85% of people.
Would you agree that today many government officials practically do not obey the law?
| Oct.11 | Sep.21 | |
| Strongly agree | 35 | 39 |
| Agree | 50 | 35 |
| Disagree | 10 | 15 |
| Strongly disagree | 1 | 6 |
| can’t say | 5 | 5 |
Law enforcement
The prevailing point of view turned out to be that the law enforcement is serving the interests of the authorities: for special services it is 44%, for the General Prosecutor’s Office – 41%, for the Police – 38%.
Methodology
This survey was conducted September 23 – 29 2021, among a representative sample of all Russian urban and rural residents. The sample consisted of 1634 people aged 18 or older in 137 municipalities of 50 regions of the Russian Federation. The survey was conducted as a personal interview in respondents’ homes. The answer distribution is presented as percentages of the total number of participants along with data from previous surveys.
The statistical error of these studies for a sample of 1600 people (with a probability of 0.95) does not exceed:
3.4% for indicators around 50%
2.9% for indicators around 25%/75%
2.0% for indicators around 10%/90%
1.5% for indicators around 5%/95%
The ANO Levada Center has been included in the registry of non-commercial organizations acting as foreign agents.