Law/5. Criminal law and criminology

 

Zhadan V.N.
PhD in Law, Associate Professor

Kazan Federal University, Elabuga Institute, Russia

ON THE CRIMINOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CORRUPTION CRIME IN RUSSIA

 

Abstract. The article discusses criminological characteristics of corruption crime in Russia on the basis of analysis of theoretical propositions of the science of criminology, official statistics, existing legislation and legal acts, as well as scientific approaches and the author's understanding.

Key words: criminological characteristic of corruption crime, Russia, analysis, theoretical principles, statistics, legislation, legal acts, approaches.

 

It is generally accepted that one of the important problems for many countries is the corruption in the bodies of state power and economic activity. The impact of corruption in these countries has grown so much and continues to grow that in some cases it reached alarming proportions and comparable with a large part of the state budget of the countries [1, p. 1807].

What happened in Russia in 90-ies of XX century reforms in the political and socio-economic spheres led to the development of new market relations, providing for the de-monopolization of the state and establishing a multiplicity of forms of ownership, freedom of enterprise and other economic activities. However, this process was not only complex and economically unstable, which caused negative effects in socio-economic terms [2, p. 664], but also entailed, along with other negative consequences of a large increase not only in ordinary and organized, but also economic and corruption crime.

The analysis of criminological and criminal-legal characteristics of corruption and corruption crimes in Russia [3-9], the subject of many scientific papers in the legal literature and Internet resources. This interest is not accidental, as Russia according to expert estimates, the international and domestic sources refers to the number of countries with "high" levels of corruption in governance and economic activities, and combating corruption crimes is an important task of the state, including law enforcement bodies of the Russian Federation (further – Russian Federation, RF).

The subject of this consideration are questions about the criminological characteristics of corruption crime in Russia, and is a continuation of previously published materials "Urgent questions about the system of corruption crimes", "whether the right to existence of the criminal-legal concept of "corruption?", "On corruption and criminological characteristics of corruption crimes", "On criminological aspects of corruption criminal activities in Russia", "criminal-legal counteraction of corruption in Russia", "on prevention of corruption crimes in Russia", "Some approaches to the definition of characteristics and concepts of corruption crimes" and others. During the consideration of the criminological characteristics of corruption crime the author will partially use previously published materials.

It is well known that the corruption continues with varying success as much as there is the Russian state. The roots of corruption should be sought in the history of Ancient Russia, when there was a system of so-called "feedings", and administrative employees were not wages as such to provide for themselves at the expense of citizens somehow involved in their activities. In the course of addressing relevant issues, these workers often focused not only on the state interest, but also on the size of personal gain. A similar practice was actively eradicated by Peter I and partially by subsequent Russian monarchs. More actively fought against corruption in the Soviet period, but in one form or another survived up to the present the Russian time. This is indicated not only historical documents, but this phenomenon has found multiple reflection in folklore and colloquial Russian. "Not podmazhesh, you will not come" – we say to this day, hinting at the possibility to solve the issue of corrupt ways [10, p. 27].

Before moving to the analysis of criminological characteristics of corruption crime in Russia, it is advisable to define the concept of terms "corruption", "corruption offence" and "corruption crime".

The term "corruption" comes from a combination of the Latin words "sogge" (several participants entering the relationship for one subject) and "gymraeg" (to break, to damage, to break, to cancel). The result is a self-saghirah term, which includes participation in the activities of several persons, the purpose of which is "braking" the normal course of the trial or management of the Affairs of society [11, p. 46].

In the law dictionary the term "corruption" is defined as a socially dangerous phenomenon in the sphere of politics or state governance, manifested in the deliberate use of the authorities of his official status for illegal receipt of property and non-property benefits and advantages in any form, as well as the bribery of these persons [12].

According to G. A. Alexandrov, corruption is a phenomenon that has struck the apparatus of state power and control associated with his disorder, when representatives of the office illegally use their official position for selfish ends, for personal enrichment contrary to interests of service [13, p. 23].

According to p. 1 art. 1 of the Federal law dated 25.12.2008 N 273-FZ "On combating corruption" [14] (hereinafter referred FZ "On combating corruption") and corruption is defined as abuse of official position, bribery, receiving a bribe, abuse of authority, commercial bribery or other illegal use by a physical person of his official position contrary to legitimate interests of society and the state in order to obtain benefits in the form of money, valuables, other property or services of property character, other property rights for itself or for third parties or illegal provision of such benefits specified person other physical persons; committing mentioned actions on behalf or in the interests of a legal entity.

As follows from the normative concept of "corruption" the legislator allocates its symptoms and indicates particular types of crimes (abuse of official position, bribery, receiving a bribe, abuse of authority, commercial bribery, etc.) and thereby refers to certain offences [15, p. 556] provided for in the Criminal code of Russian Federation [16] (hereinafter – CC RF), namely: abuse of office (article 285 of the criminal code), taking bribes (article 290 of the criminal code), bribery (article 291 of the criminal code), forgery (article 292 of the criminal code), etc.

In the indication of the Prosecutor General of Russia N 797/11 and Ministry of internal Affairs N 2 of 13.12.2016 "About introduction in action of the lists of articles of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation, used when forming the statistical reporting" [17] given a list number N 23 "Crimes of corruption", which uses the term "crimes of corruption".

According to the list N 23 [17] to the crimes of corruption include the following article of the criminal code: article 285, 201, 141.1, 184, paragraph "b" of part 3 of article 188, article 204, 204.1, 204.2, paragraph "a" of part 2 of article 226.1, paragraph "b" of part 2 of article 229.1 of article 289, 290, 291, 291.1, 291.2, and other articles of the criminal code under certain conditions.

Corruption and corruption offences are related as whole and part. Corruption crime is the aggregate of crimes, the dispositions of criminal law which contain elements of corruption [18, p. 406].

As is well known criminological characteristics of certain types of crime, including corruption offences, includes the following aspects (elements): 1) the status, dynamics, proportion, structure, level of latency, etc. [19, p. 63]; 2) the causes and conditions conducive to the Commission of crimes; 3) criminological characteristics of offender; 4) prevention and prevention of crimes. These elements of criminological characteristics of corruption crimes will be the subject ... studies [20, p. 17].

According to official statistics in Russia for the year 2016 was just 2160,1 thousand crimes, including corruption crimes 27050 (– 10,3%), the proportion of these crimes in the total number amounted to 1.2% [21]. At the same time in 2010 it was 2628,8 thousand crimes, from them – 59283 corruption crimes, the specific gravity of the crimes in this category is 2.3% [22]. Thus for the year 2016 in comparison with 2010 was registered in 32233 corruption-related offences. In recent years, Russia has experienced a downward trend in the total number of registered crimes and corruption crimes.

Of interest is the scientific approach that the crime of corruption characterized by a high latency [1, p. 1809], and therefore in the official statistics on corruption-related crimes according to the estimates of Russian experts reflected only one half (third) of the committed crimes in this category.

In criminological science, decided to celebrate the multiplicity of causes of corruption, highlighting economic, institutional and socio-cultural factors. As the economic causes of corruption, primarily known as: low salaries of civil servants and their high powers to influence the activities of firms and citizens. Corruption flourishes wherever the officials have broad powers to dispose of any scarce goods. Institutional causes of corruption are considered to be high level of confidentiality in the work of state agencies, a cumbersome reporting system, the lack of transparency in the system of lawmaking, poor personnel policy, allowing for the distribution of sinecures and opportunities for promotion regardless of the actual results of the work of employees. Another reason can be considered as deficiencies in the activities of the bodies responsible for the fight against crime [23, p. 231], as a whole, and corruption. Socio-cultural causes of corruption are the demoralization of society, lack of information and organization of citizens, social passivity in relation to self-will "powers".

In those countries, where there are three groups of factors, primarily, developing countries, corruption is most high. Most experts agree that the main reason for high corruption is the imperfection of political institutions, which provide internal and external mechanisms of deterrence.

In addition, there is reason to believe that some objective circumstances make a significant contribution. The objective reasons include the fact that in most cases of corruption crimes it is almost impossible to identify the negative consequences of wrongful acts. As a rule, all parties benefit and are not interested in the message about the crime and its disclosure as subject to criminal liability. In addition, in most cases there are no visible signs of a crime, as for a bribe committed lawful actions. Subjective reasons include: a lack of focused state policy in countering and combating this social phenomenon, as well as insufficient professional level of employees involved in these activities.

In addition to these classifications of the causes and conditions of the relevant offences in terms of corruption and corruption crime applies "the scientific approach of causality in which a causes of crime is understood as the interaction of the environment and man, highlighting the internal and external causes and conditions of crime ..." [24, p. 5], which require additional independent research.

Following the criminological aspect of corruption crime is a criminological characteristics of offender. It is generally accepted that the identity of the offender includes the aggregate of the individual properties and qualities that lead to committing a crime, which is manifested antisocial behavior.

Corruption offender's personality in domestic criminology, it is necessary to consider how the totality of socially significant qualities of the personality formed in the process of public or government activities (experience of social management) and causing use it to achieve personal, group or corporate objectives of the funds are shameful from the perspective of criminal law. Although this definition is not perfect, but it can be used for further investigation of individual corruption offender [25, p. 52].

Criminological research conducted in the part of the personality of criminals-corrupt officials show the following structure: employees of ministries, departments and other Executive bodies at Federal, regional and local levels – 40%; law enforcement agencies – 25%; workers of medical, educational and social organizations – 20%; employees of regulatory, tax and customs services – 12%; the deputies of different levels – 1%; other parties – 2% [26].

A. V. Belyanin using research conducted by the sociological laboratory, Moscow state University, drew attention to the following information that about 70% of Russian officials take bribes, approximately 24% of Russian respondents in a variety of social groups believe that bribery as one form of manifestation of corruption is the most dangerous for modern society and reduces the confidence of the population to state structures and officials [27, p.12].

The final element of criminological analysis of corruption crime are General and special measures for combating corruption and the prevention of crimes of this category. Prevention of corruption is a multi – tiered system of state measures aimed at eliminating the causes of crime and conditions that contribute to their making.

As noted above, Russia has recently engaged in various programmes to combat corruption. For example, the Council of Europe in 1999 created the international organization Group of States against corruption (GRECO) and Russia is a member. The main aim of the GRECO is to assist member countries in fighting corruption, installing anti-corruption standards (requirements) for activities of the state and its bodies, as well as monitors compliance with these standards of practice.

For the successful implementation of anti-corruption state policy should be aimed at ensuring the interests of society and individuals, and estimation of activity of officials should be based on principles that ensure these interests. In addition, in its activities, the state must rely on creating a network of civil society institutions, strict rule of law, equality of the rights and freedoms of citizens in the economic and political spheres.

In order to counter corruption in the system of state policy should: 1) improvement of the legal framework of the fight against official corruption and crime (amendments and additions in the Federal law "On state service of the Russian Federation"); 2) improving the functioning of the state apparatus and procedures for the solution of the issues; a clear legal regulation of the official activities of the officials; their salaries and services, ensuring a decent standard of living; 3) improvement of selection and placement of cadres in the state apparatus, the dismissal from public service of persons who have violated ethical standards of conduct associated with the exercise of official authority; 4) development and implementation at Federal and regional levels long-term target programs of the fight against official crimes and corruption; 5) implementation of increased control over revenues and expenditures of the state, municipal and other categories of employees; 6) ensuring safety of the persons engaged in the fight against official corruption crimes and their family members; 7) enhancing law enforcement activities on the prevention and suppression of the facts of committing official crimes and corruption crimes; 8) the establishment and implementation of administrative supervision of persons with convictions for committing serious and official corruption crimes; 9) the use of mass media and the education system, all civil society institutions to actively promote awareness among the citizens of the country to the risk of corruption and thus reduce the level of public tolerance and its manifestations [28].

Referred to as a partial General social and specially-criminological measures to combat corruption is aimed at reducing corruption crime in Russian society.

Thus, this study may be understood as the analysis of theoretical propositions of the science of criminology, official statistics, existing legislation and legal acts, as well as scientific approaches and the author's understanding of some issues about criminological characteristic of corruption crime in Russia.

 

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