On the Criminal Policy Concerning Juvenile Crime in Modern Russia

Abstract

The attitude of the state towards underage criminals has considerably changed in the last decade, which is evident from the adoption of new normative legal acts determining the direction of state criminal policy concerning children. Thus, the Decree of the President of Russia declared 2018-2027 to be the Decade of Childhood, whose scope includes a comprehensive program of preventing underage crimes, the use of restorative techniques and methods of preventive work with children and their parents, etc. Sentencing practices and exemption from punishment have also been revised. The courts have started to apply criminal law measures more widely, to terminate criminal cases, exempt minors from criminal liability and punishment, and to use reconciliation programs. This lead to the reduction of both the number of young offenders institutions and the number of their inmates. At the same time, there is a trend for a harsher response of the state to some crimes of minors, which shows that the trend for the humanization of criminal policy concerning them is unstable. Widening the list of Articles included in Art. 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, for which the age of responsibility is 14, development of draft laws providing for the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years for very grave crimes by the State Dumas Committee for the Development of Civil Society, and others, testify to the inconsistency of lawmaking work and the absence of adequate understanding of the essence of juvenile crime. The authors show that it is necessary to widen the application of double prevention norms: it is suggested that in each case of juvenile crime it is reasonable to raise the question of prosecuting parents for non-fulfillment or undue fulfillment of child-rearing obligations when there are grounds for such prosecution (Art. 156 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It is also recommended to widen the application of norms of liability for involving minors in crimes and other anti-social actions.