The introduction to the volume on Criminality, Deviancy, Order, and Security in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia and East Germany. It brings the role of the police and their depiction in films, the penal system as well as youth and white-collar crime, and other forms of deviant behavior.
The main emphasis is put on presumed or truly "nonpolitically" motivated violations of norms or laws as well as on how such crimes were prevented and punished.