On the Contemporary State of Russia’s Criminal-Law Policy

The article examines problems of criminal-law policy in contemporary Russia. The subject of the study is state policy on countering crime at the present stage. The aim of the study is to reveal the essence of criminal-law policy, to emphasize the importance of a carefully considered approach to combating crime, and to determining which acts should be recognized as criminally punishable. The article is based on a set of research methods, including analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, as well as the formal legal method. The Author points to a state of crisis characterizing the state’s response to contemporary challenges. This is substantiated by the following factors: excessive criminalization; the spread of moral panic in society with regard to certain phenomena and a disproportionate state response to them; an increase in the number of provisions of criminal legislation penalizing propaganda and calls for conduct or phenomena deemed dangerous by the state, together with the expanding practice of applying such provisions; the legislature’s tendency to act on first impulse, without considering the grounds for criminalization; an increase in the number of victimless offences; a legislative and law-enforcement bias toward harsher liability, including increased penalization; the adoption, almost without discussion and within extremely short timeframes, of highly complex bills establishing new elements of criminal offences; the courts’ failure to pay due attention to establishing the subjective element of an offence, which leads to the conviction of persons for acts that, in principle, should not entail any liability; the introduction of fundamental amendments to bills that are unrelated to the original proposals, with a view to circumventing the requirement to provide an explanatory note to the proposed amendments; and the insufficiency of state measures in crime-prevention activity, which is compensated for by imposing on citizens, under threat of criminal liability, a duty to assist in combating crime. The article concludes that the problems identified above require an immediate change in both the legislative and law-enforcement course, and it sets out specific directions for such changes. 

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