The classification of crimes in criminal law is a certain technique of legal technique. It is based on the division of legal norms by one criterion into several types, groups. It has a legal and regulatory character, pursues as a goal the understanding and use of criminal norms and legal institutions.
The classification of crimes needs the right approach in order to be an objective and sustainable area.
History reference
The problems of the criminal acts division were dealt with by V. M. Baranov, V. P. Konyakhin, A. I. Martsev, A. P. Kuznetsov. They recognized the importance of a correct and justified classification for public and private law in Russia. Otherwise, it would be difficult to guarantee the social value of the law, its objectivity, and the effectiveness of its application.
The concept and significance of gradation
The classification of criminal offenses with visual impartiality is of particular importance, has its own place in the system. It is used for the targeted regulation of legal and criminal relations, taking into account the interests and social benefits under protection.
In the case of rational use of the entire system of criminal legislation, the situation is clarified, the question of the punishment of the guilty person is resolved.
If the classification of crimes is not applied, it will be difficult to apply legal norms.
In practical terms, such a division is relevant for law enforcement practice, as it has a special mode of functioning of different parts of the Criminal Code of Russia. It is also necessary for criminal and legal norms and institutions that open up new opportunities for subjects.
The classification of crimes depends on how consistently and in detail it is used in the design process of various legal and criminal institutions.
Functional relevance for criminal law is determined by the following features:
- allows you to identify the essence of institutions included in criminal law;
- determine the purpose of different classification groups;
- identify their objective signs;
- find constituent components;
- to get an idea of ​​the phenomenon in question in a scientifically sound and consistent manner.
The classification of criminal offenses makes it possible to find subordinations and relationships, analyze them as a whole, and complete the missing details. It helps to study systematize disparate details, make assumptions, confirm or refute them.
Criteria and types
The classification of crimes involves the use of certain criteria. In criminal law, they mean a danger to the community of the act committed. It is precisely on the degree and nature of the public danger of the crime that criminal law is based.
The concept and classification of crimes is deciphered in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. They are divided into four groups: light, medium, severe, especially severe.
The word “severity” contains a qualitative and quantitative description of the phenomenon. For example, the main difference between a minor act and a serious crime is not only the “quantitative” measure of the harm done to the interests of society, the individual, but also the qualitative harm.
This fact is emphasized by the legislator when the classification of crimes is used. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation connects the identification of committed acts of a certain gravity with the highest indicator, which is provided for by the Code. The design for such actions has been enshrined in the Criminal Law since the beginning of the twentieth century.
Crime in the form of a social act:
- expressed in the specific behavior of people;
- implements changes in social reality;
- poses a real threat to a qualitative change in the living conditions of other people.
The forensic classification of crimes is used in criminal law to identify the level of harm done.
It is considered grave when public danger arises from it. Assessment of severity is based on the value of the object in respect of which the act was committed. The court does not assess social danger as such, but the primary consequence of a crime characterizing social harm, which lends itself to various measurements.
That is why in the criminal law a new category should be used - “public harmfulness”. Mention of her should be maintained in the norm, which gives the concept of crime.
In other cases, when the legislator uses the category of social danger, we are talking about public harmfulness.
The very concept and classification of crimes are regulated by the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
The factor of “gravity” of the committed act is a reflection of social harmfulness. In criminal law, it is defined as a single unit of crime unit members.
What characterizes the act? Signs, classification reflect the typical, essential parameters of a particular phenomenon - its "severity". The decision on the duration and type of punishment depends on this.
Classification of the elements of crime allows to reveal the social essence of the act.
Public harmfulness as a substantial feature of the division of crimes into various categories expresses the value and importance of the object of abuse. If it is chosen incorrectly by sanction, a formal criterion, there is a "emasculation" of the content of public harmfulness, its belittling.
It is the severity level that is taken as the basis, reflects the significance of the object of encroachment, the amount of damage caused, the nature of the motives, the form of guilt, as well as other circumstances.
Value division
According to the degree and nature of public danger, each category corresponds to an object of some value. Only 66% of all encroachments that are in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation correspond to the value of the facilities in which their compositions are located. Given the typicality and commonality of changes in public relations according to the degree and nature of the intensity of attacks, the classification of objects of crime, dividing them into several groups, is accepted by social significance:
- Particularly valuable, they include human life, the foundations of the security of the state, of humanity.
- Valuable related to public safety and sexual integrity.
- Of average value: property, interests of minor citizens and families, health, services in commercial companies.
- Small value: dignity and honor of an individual, social and political rights of a citizen and a person, operation of transport, information security.
The classification technique of crimes allows you to narrow the range of acts, individualize punishments depending on their objective harmfulness. Such a gradation makes it possible to reflect the internal regularity of the nature of the crime committed through its objectivity and essence, legislatively consolidate an adequate assessment of all categories of crime.
Qualifying Attributes
The classification of crimes and its significance are determined by the motives and goals of the act. For example, selfish motives and goals in the absence of serious harm are regarded as crimes of a minor severity group.
The re-qualification of a moderate crime into a grave act is carried out upon occurrence of the following consequences: serious physical harm to health, serious material damage.
Such a “transition” is also carried out in the case of conspiracy between a group of persons during an act, when using one's official position, using violence, and also when using objects that serve as weapons.
Especially grave deeds
They are characterized by signs of encroachment on a valuable object. For example, among them there are:
- actions by a group or an organized group in a preliminary conspiracy;
- use of violence posing a threat to human health;
- actions against minors;
- acts directed against persons in official, material, other dependence.
In the event that the injured person is caused death by negligence in the event of a deliberate encroachment on a valuable object, it is accompanied by a “transition” of a grave act to a particularly grave crime.
The elements of public harmfulness of a criminal assault are:
- its degree, the signs of which is the severity of the consequences, the method of committing the act;
- a character that is associated with a form of guilt and an object of abuse.
It is necessary to distinguish between the signs and elements of social harmfulness. Under the elements of the offense understand the component part of a complex whole, under the sign - the essential side of a phenomenon.
The presence in the Criminal Code of the classification of acts of two criteria poses a certain problem. The commission of crimes that have one sanction, but a different form of guilt, entails different consequences of a legal type, therefore they are assigned to different categories of acts.
An artificial increase in the classification criteria for crimes entails a problem in which the value of the object of the infringement, the method of committing the act, as well as the severity of the consequences, remain without legal consequences.
Modern tendencies
Currently, the legislator does not carry out a clear gradation and compliance with the categories of crimes of legal consequences. For example, the different value of objects - health and life - in the presence of similar other signs - the severity of the consequences, the form of guilt - should lead to the classification of such acts in different categories of crimes.
The following picture exists in the present criminal law: in case of careless deprivation of life (Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and infliction of grievous bodily harm to the victim (Article 118 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), they are assigned to the same category of crime. The nature of the severity of the act is reflected in the types of punishments.
For example, the following types of punishment are classified as insignificant severity: fine, corrective and compulsory labor, restriction on service.
The degree of severity is reflected within the limits of character and type.
For categories of punishments of insignificant severity, this amounts to six months, a year, and a half years in prison. It is important that the amount of punishment does not go beyond the limits of this category, that is, does not exceed two years in prison.
Structure of the assessment of acts
Currently, taking into account the severity and nature of punishments has a four-step option. According to the content, punishments that are not related to deprivation of liberty (“low severity”), as well as punishments that are of an exceptional nature — life imprisonment or the death penalty — are distinguished into separate categories.
As a category of crime, a criminal offense involves acts that entail maximum punishment, not involving imprisonment.
Only punishments apply to persons who have committed crimes of this category: fines, corrective and compulsory labor, arrest, detention.
The small number of such socially dangerous acts and the imposition of a life sentence for acts of special gravity, which are associated with an assault on life, demonstrate the need to distinguish this category of crime.
The allocation of the category of “exceptional gravity” makes it possible, in addition to the arguments mentioned above, to remove a rather wide range of sanctions in especially serious crimes.
Division of Crimes Marshakova N. N.
In the material devoted to the theoretical aspects of the functional significance in the criminal law of the classification of crimes, the author proposes to take the immediate object of the crime as a basis. In her opinion, crimes against health and life (Chapter 16 of the Criminal Code) are divided into:
- actually harmful to human health and life;
- against the honor, freedom and dignity of the individual;
- crimes against sexual freedom of minors;
- acts against constitutional freedoms and rights of a citizen and a person (Chapter 19 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);
- against social, economic and labor freedoms and rights (Articles 137–139 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);
- acts related to the encroachment on the moral and physical development of the personality of minors.
Taking into account the specific object of the crime, the author proposes a classification of crimes related to the encroachment on public safety (Articles 205-212, 227 of the Criminal Code), acts against public health, public morality; environmental crimes that pose a threat to flora, fauna, the entire environment, as well as acts related to the encroachment on the operation and traffic.
Conclusion
Crimes against security and the constitutional system are currently classified into several types: attacks on external and internal security, the constitutional foundations of religious, legal, national relations, taking into account the subject of the crime against the interests of the service, and the authorities committed by officials, municipal employees.
In the legislation of foreign countries, two- and three-membered versions of the classification of criminal acts are used, taking into account the gravity of the offense, its size and type, as well as the punishment provided for in the criminal code.
In our country, the system of criminal punishment for acts of varying severity is not perfect, therefore, it needs serious revision, adjustment, improvement.