Law enforcement in Kazakhstan is handled by the

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

police () and law courts, largely unchanged from the era of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

control, and is shared between the country's National Security Committee,

Ministry of Internal Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

and the Office of the Procurator General.

Organisation

The police force itself comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whereas the National Security Committee and the Procurator General's office are responsibly for intelligence gathering and investigation respectively. From 1992 Kazakhstan became a member of

INTERPOL The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...

. Its law enforcement agencies are closely tied with those of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, and

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

. The court system in Kazakhstan operates at three levels, local, province, and

supreme court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

, and operates under a system of guaranteed legal representation (similar to that of the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

Human rights allegations

The website of the US Embassy in Kazakhstan notes that in 2004-2005 the Kazakhstan government's human-rights record "remained poor," and "the Government continued to commit numerous abuses." Observer group

Freedom House Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...

ranks this former

state with a 6 in Political Rights and a 5 in Civil Liberties (scale of 1-7; 1 is the highest), denoting it as "Not Free." Political expression was reported to be restricted in Kazakhstan in the months leading up to presidential elections in December, according to observers, including

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

and

. The CIA world fact book cites that out of 76,000 prisoners interred in Kazakhstan prisons, 1,300 died of tuberculosis in 1995, and the prisons themselves suffer from overcrowding and staff shortages.Report of the ''USA CIA World Fact Books'', the United Nations Statistical Office In 2000s, the authorities made a conscious effort to reduce prison population, and achieved a significant decline of prisoners and those held in pre-trial detention. While the government funding for the prison system is still seen to be inadequate, prison conditions have improved, an
several outdated penitentiaries have been closed

Crime rates

Kazakhstan has suffered from growing crime rates in the 1990s, with a rate of 50 crimes per 10,000 population being cited, most commonly

violent crime A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violence, violent act is t ...

and

narcotics The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...

, (

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...

and

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

in particular, it was estimated that there are 1,380 km² of cannabis plantation). The 2018 International Crime Victims Survey showed low crime rates in the country. The police are also reportedly underfunded. In 2018, the ministry of Interior reported the number of Policemen to be 424 policemen per 100,000 citizens, with an average salary of 300 US dollars, which puts the total number at approximately 80,000 policemen.

References

{{Asia topic, Law enforcement in Politics of Kazakhstan Law of Kazakhstan