Punishment and other measures of a criminal law nature constitute methods of state coercion. Their use is strictly regulated by the current legislation in the state. Sentencing is only possible if a crime has been committed. The society requires the presence of this phenomenon without fail, at the same time it is impossible to call such measures the main way to prevent crime.
History and Practice
The need for punitive measures in the USSR (including higher ones) was also mentioned by Lenin, who more than once called for the use of adequate methods of reaction to the commission of offenses, while at the same time not considering this a significant way to exclude the phenomenon as a whole - to succeed in combating crimes it was necessary , as follows from his works, to change public opinion, morality, as well as institutions that ensure the political life of society. His words are relevant today. The society in which a modern person lives should strive to reduce crime until the complete elimination of the phenomenon. Although punishment cannot be dispensed with, the main role should be played by policy settings, economic conditions, economic and organizational, educational and cultural measures.
Punishment and other crime prevention measures in our country attract the attention of specialists in the field of law, and the public monitors how actively the methods of persuasion are used, how the future generation is brought up. However, far from always a mild approach gives the desired outcome, therefore it is impossible to exclude serious ways of influencing people.
Everything has its time and place
Capital and other penalties are intended to be an auxiliary method of reducing the frequency of criminal acts. Even in the period of the Secular Union, lawyers have repeatedly spoken about the need for a thorough investigation of any case of an offense with the selection of an adequate punishment corresponding to the committed act. The purpose of the punishment variant must comply with the laws adopted by the state, primarily the Constitution. The right of appointment belongs to the court and cannot be assigned to anyone else. The responsible authority must evaluate the offense and apply punishment to the person, reflecting the degree of censure committed by the country. A negative assessment applies to the person who committed such an act, and to the event itself.
As can be concluded from the current legislation, the concept of punishment includes the criminal aspect. Kara in this aspect involves the appointment of something strictly for a crime that has already been committed by a person, also requires proportionality. Kara must be a source of suffering, deprivation for the offender, as well as criminal record status. Punishment by default involves some deprivation of the punishment. They are most pronounced in the case of capital punishment, that is, the death penalty, depriving a person of his life. The second option is when the guilty person is deprived of his freedom temporarily or for life. A person cannot move, following his desires, choose his place of residence. Instead, he is placed in a specialized institution where life is subject to a strict regime.
Features of the car
Some measures, types of punishment affect the profession, career. Restrictions are imposed on a person in connection with the occupation of a number of posts, a ban on specific varieties of activity is possible. This makes the offender worry about changing qualifications, professions. In most cases, such people are forced to go to work with lower pay.
It is possible to confiscate something that the perpetrator possesses, or to impose a fine on him. At the same time, property interests are infringed. Considering what penalties bring moral suffering to the perpetrator, fines and confiscations should not be excluded from attention - as a rule, this aspect of deprivation is also pronounced. The punished person often loses relations with relatives, his connections with colleagues and others, friends, and familiar people suffer. Such a person is forced to be ashamed, he repents of the perfect. Of course, the consequences are fully deserved by virtue of a perfect misconduct. At the same time, punishment cannot be directed at causing suffering, at humiliating a person - this is contrary to the law, basic human rights.
It can't be worse
An exceptional, capital punishment is the execution of the offender. At present, highly civilized powers have either completely abandoned this approach, or they are only allowed it for very serious crimes. Execution is a field of study of legal science, but at the same time ethics, philosophy. Sociologists pay a lot of attention to her. Legal sociology, in particular, aims to determine how execution affects society. Some time ago, this measure was widespread, moreover, it was practiced in cruel forms, but today many powers have completely canceled such a practice. These countries include the Scandinavian, some European - a total of 35 powers. Two dozen countries are considering the possibility of applying this measure exclusively during the war. Such restrictions were set by England, Israel, Argentina. Similar rules apply in the Canal and Italy.
The capital punishment (execution, another way of killing the guilty) is preserved in about a hundred states. The main share falls on Asia, Africa. One cannot but pay attention to the United States belonging to this category of countries. The specifics of America is such that in different states the laws are slightly different, and the execution exists in 38 (fifty states in total), in 12 it was canceled. Five methods of killing are practiced - gas, poison, electricity, shooting, hanging.
Abroad and at home
In our country, the death penalty is an object of active discussion of specialists. You cannot be a member of the EU without abolishing the execution on the territory of a power. We currently have a moratorium on such a measure, but in total there are more than seven hundred people in places of forced detention whose sentence involves killing. The laws of the state allow the replacement of execution by imprisonment throughout life - this is considered a pardon. An alternative is imprisonment for a quarter of a century.
There are three places intended for holding persons sentenced to life imprisonment. One of the institutions is located in Mordovia, the other is close to the small village of Lozva, and the last is on Tierra del Fuego.
The fate of these people is in the hands of the public. How applicable is the execution? Lawyers, politicians, activists are actively involved in these disputes. Even in former times, humanists believed that there was no benefit from capital punishment (execution and other forms), as this only teaches people to be cruel. The European powers provide many examples to analyze how much execution can be considered necessary. Many are convinced that the deprivation of life is impossible, despite the perfect misconduct. Do not forget about the possibility of an erroneous sentence - this will cause the death of an innocent.
Subtleties of the question
What punitive measures can teach people to comply with the laws, and which only harden the public, thereby in no way reducing the frequency of committing unlawful acts? Some are convinced that execution is one of the harmful approaches. There is another camp of those who believe that it is the highest measure - the only thing that limits the rapid growth of the most serious misconduct.Execution is an adequate retribution to the one who killed the other person. There are few who wish to argue with the fact that maniacs who kill defenseless innocent people deserve life. On average, about 80% of the population of the powers recognize the use of execution as reasonable, and about half of them consider it necessary to do this publicly. Others are convinced that execution should punish not only murder, but also corruption and drug trafficking. Similarly, you need to punish spies.
Those who disagree with this point of view can operate with a considerable amount of facts: there were more than enough people sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR, and an impressive number of these people were later recognized as innocent. In addition, a number of studies indicate the ineffectiveness of execution as a method of influencing the maniac’s consciousness. For example, studies conducted in America were devoted to the connection between crime and the practice of execution in different states: the level remained approximately equal, which means that criminals will not be scared of the death threat.
How to punish?
If there is an opportunity to sentence to capital punishment (which is far from legal in any country), before its application it is necessary to carefully analyze the situation so that the misconduct and its consequences are consistent with each other. Currently, in our country quite often it is necessary to apply criminal proceedings to offenders - it is known from statistics that almost half of the cases are in this area of law.
Criminal punishment may imply conditional conviction. In this case, the person is accused and found guilty, the method chosen is to punish him, after which a decision is made on the appointment of such conditional. This means that there is no need to enforce the sentence if a person follows the court’s established conditions of conduct.
Of course, to apply the conditional as a measure of criminal punishment is only strictly limited. This is permissible in some cases when the court chose to punish the offender with his punishment, restrict his ability to serve, and also appointed corrective labor or sentenced to be in a disciplinary military unit. Conditional, you can assign punishment, the term for which - up to eight years.
Probation
Such a punitive measure involves the selection of a certain time period during which the perpetrator must prove to the officials responsible for the assessment that he corrected himself. The option fully corresponds to the idea of conviction in order to prevent further crime. The duration of the trial period may be only six months, in other cases up to five years inclusive. If the court decided to deprive the person of freedom for a year or chose an even milder measure, the trial period varies from 6-36 months. If a conclusion is expected for more than a year, the convict’s behavior will be monitored from six months to five years. Choosing the optimal duration, evaluate the person's ability to improve. It is assumed that it is at the end of the selected term that you can see how much the criminal has changed. The consequences of condemnation depend on how the person will behave during the test. The court retains the right to use real punishment during the trial period if the offender violates the established conditions.
Conditional conviction as a measure of punishment is applied if the court assumes that the offender can reform outside the special institution. As far as possible, they conclude by evaluating the nature of the person, the features of the offense committed by him, his danger to society, as well as the circumstances that accompanied the perfect and made him softer or harder.
The law does not prohibit the choice of a conditional sentence in relation to the perpetrator of a grave, especially grave offense. In reality, the court applies conditional punishment in such a situation only as an exception.The court has the right to choose this form if it is revealed that the offender was secondary, and information about the person’s personality and the circumstances in which the illegal act was committed is also decided in favor of conditional conviction.
Administrative punishment
Administrative punishment measures are practiced at the state level as a way of assigning responsibility to a person who has committed an administrative offense. The main idea of such a punishment is to prevent similar misconduct on the part of other citizens, as well as an already mistaken person. Punishment cannot humiliate a person, bring him physical suffering. If the subject of the process is a legal entity, it is unacceptable to harm his business reputation with punishment. The idea of the approach is crime prevention.
Administrative punishment and preventive measures are two sections of legal science that are similar in terms of application, the main purpose for which they are practiced. The suppression, however, does not belong to the category of responsibility, aims to complete the crime and make the guilty responsible based on the nature of the act. Suppression may be prior to sentencing. The choice of punishment does not depend on suppression. Suppression can go to criminal measures, procedural, if the situation meets the requirements specified in the laws, and inaction becomes a crime.
Destination Features
As a rule, administrative penalties imply a material effect, a moral influence on the person who committed the criminal act. Specific varieties include moral aspects along with material ones, which may temporarily limit human rights. Possible, in particular, arrest or deprivation of specific rights. Punishment is a complex system, which is characterized by common foundations, pursued goals, nature. Punishments can replace each other under certain conditions. They are aimed at the prevention of crimes, the seizure of the instruments by which such were committed. Punishment involves arrest, fine, deprivation of certain rights that a person had. If the punishment is imposed on a foreigner, he may be expelled from our country. The same applies to those who do not have citizenship at all. Another possible measure is disqualification.
A legal entity as an administrative punishment may face a fine, seizure of an object, warning, confiscation.
Mostly the rules for sentencing are regulated by the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. An exception is an administrative fine. In the said law, punishments are divided into basic, additional.
Features of measures: warning
When choosing punitive measures for adolescents and adult individuals, legal entities who have committed administrative offenses, it is necessary to focus on the options allowed by law. Quite often used as a measure of warning. The person is officially censured, as evidenced by a written official paper drawn up by law enforcement agencies. Given verbally, a warning is not a punishment. Being a punishment, it initiates consequences similar to other punishments. It can be significant in determining the recurrence of violations, for which weighted consequences are possible.
A warning as a preventive measure can be applied if the case falls under the provisions of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation or laws in force in the territory of a particular subject.
Limitations and their absence
If in the times of the Soviet Union, especially the period shortly after the emergence of a power, as well as during the difficult phase of the war and recovery after it, there were situations in which judges could sentence a teenager to capital punishment, nowadays the situation has changed dramatically. Moreover, measures that are not simply not supreme, but do not even limit human freedom, are considered increasingly significant.In developed countries, the imposition of punishments is actively spread, under which the offender must work for the benefit of society. Recently, in our country, the list of opportunities and measures of such a plan is actively expanding.
The classic type of punishment is community service. For some time, a person outside his studies, work in which he is mainly occupied, works in a place agreed by the court, without receiving payment for this. The penalties that have changed significantly over the past 15 years have progressed in aspects of work aimed at the benefit of society, and now there is a wide variety of types of labor that the offender can send to. The special committee organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs is engaged in this. He regularly receives relevant data from the local employment center, on the basis of this information determines which works are most useful at the moment, but are simple enough so that convicts can handle them. Most often, criminals are sent to landscaping, although they can be entrusted with other work aimed at the benefit of society.
Features of work for society
The duration of community service is measured in hours. They can appoint a minimum of only 60 hours, a maximum period of 240. It is unacceptable to appoint such a measure if the convicted person is not able to work. This applies to those who are not yet 16, pregnant and disabled two first groups. Women must not be forced to work over 55 years old, men whose age is over 60. This measure does not apply to those involved in military service and persons on leave granted to care for a baby. If a person was first assigned social work, after which any of these circumstances arose, the person was officially released from serving the measure.
If a person evades the prescribed measure, they may arrest him. The duration of the period can reach a quarter of a year.
Material aspects
The laws of the state allow a fine. Its size depends on the norms, basic indicators relevant for the sentencing day. The fine varies between 30-1000 base units. If the penalty is chosen as a punishment in the case when the offense included administrative prejudice, it is impossible to impose a pecuniary penalty less than the largest amount specified for the situation in the current code.
When choosing the size of the fine, it is important to assess the material well-being of a person. If it is not possible to recover money, the convicted person is sent to work for the benefit of society. In case of evasion of recovery with the objective possibility of payment, the punishment is an arrest, the duration of which may reach a quarter of a year.
Rights and Opportunities
As part of the choice of punishment for the offense, a person may be deprived of the opportunity to work in a certain position. They may also prohibit some kind of activity. As a rule, this applies if the position is associated with liability, education, leadership, administrative tasks, management, entrepreneurship, transport management. Limitations vary in duration from one year to five years.
It is allowed to choose the described form of measure as the main punishment or supplementing the main punishment. The deprivation of right is relevant from the moment the punishment takes effect. Perhaps extra time, which is subject to restrictions, if any, is prescribed in the sentence. If corrective labor and dismissal are appointed, then the start of the term falls on the moment when the person began to work at the indicated place.
Work for the good of yourself and others
One of the options for punishment that is not related to restriction of liberty is correctional labor. His idea is to withhold a certain percentage of the wages of the guilty person in favor of the state. Thus, you can deduct 10-25% of the income. The duration of the restriction is 6-24 months.It is impossible to determine this kind of punishment for a person who is unacceptable to assign public works. The measure does not apply to foreigners, stateless persons. If circumstances arise that are listed above as limitations (pregnancy, parental leave, etc.), the punishment is changed to a milder one or completely exempted from it.
If the punishment needs to be chosen by a contract employee or officer, the possibilities of military service are limited. For conscripts, arrest is applied, the duration of which can reach six months. Military service restrictions imply a deduction in favor of a state from the military content of 10-25% of the amount. The whole period of application of the measure, it is impossible to get a promotion, a new rank. The indicated period is not taken into account when calculating the length of service.
Restriction of freedom
Such measures of punishment are associated with considerable difficulty in choosing a balanced option. The issue is particularly acute in our country, whose criminal system is still only being improved. Quite a lot of serious crimes are committed, which means that strict penalties are applied to criminals. Along with this, cases of deprivation of liberty without the presence of a real need are frequent. Special institutions are overcrowded, which often leads to amnesties, and this violates the authority of the court institution as a whole, making sentences less stable.
Experts argue: it is not so much the severity of the punishment that prevents an unlawful act, but rather confidence in the inevitability of applying some just measure. In order to minimize crimes, it is necessary to increase the effectiveness of structures responsible for ensuring and protecting the right, as a result, the court. It is important to consider the item of expenses for the maintenance of prisoners. The institutions in which they live need repair, modernization, protection, and restructuring. A lot of money is needed to create new such places.