Recidivism of crimes: adjustment of definition and responsibility

Abstract

The article discusses the concept of recidivism of crimes contained in article 18 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which does not correspond to its scientific definition. The legislator relies on an understanding coming from the classical direction in criminal law, which is determined by the repetition of crimes, whereas it has been scientifically proven that its distinguishing feature is the danger of the recidivist's personality. The authors propose to proceed on the basis of positivist principles in determining dangerous and especially dangerous recidivism from the characteristics of the recidivist's personality, the causes, motives of the crimes committed, his role in them, etc.: instead of a particularly dangerous relapse, it is proposed to allow the court to recognize a dangerous relapse, instead of a dangerous one – a simple relapse. It is also proposed to take into account the recidivism of a criminal record for crimes of minor gravity, if a person has previously been repeatedly brought to criminal responsibility for such acts and criminalize as a recidivism the commission of a crime at the age of majority, if the person has previously been convicted of a crime committed at the age of over sixteen years. The authors emphasize that the proposed innovations meet the principle of fairness.