for some reason, has not disappeared…
There are some points of view that exists about what inhibis control of crime – «crisis of punishment»
From our point of view, the social and economic inequality is one of the biggest criminogenic factors. People have real opportunities to satisfy their needs, depending on their belonging to one or the other social class, stratum, and group or depending on their social and economic status. Inequality of opportunity generates social conflict, dissatisfaction, envy, and at last, various forms of deviation. The process of inclusion/exclusion is acquiring more and more criminogenic and deviantogenic significance, both for the contemporary world and for the future. It is clear that «excluded people» are becoming a mass reserve, a social basis of social deviation, including criminality.
Repressive social control is the best means of exclusion, especially through the issue of selection in the police and the judiciary. There appears to be a
The basic tendencies of the theory (and in the practice of some countries) of the modern Western policy of the social control over criminality are as follows:
• Recognition of irrationality and inefficiency of the reprisals («crisis of punishment»),
• Change of the strategy of social control from «war» to «peace» and «peacemaking»
• Search for alternative (non-repressive) measures of social reaction.
• Priority of crime prevention (for our opinion about crime prevention see:
• Realization of the conceptof «restorative justice».
• Realization of the concept of «community policing».
The interrelation between the police and the population is old («eternal») and is a complicated problem. The centuries old experience shows that these relations between the police and the public a not friendly and ideal. The increase of crimes after the World War II, «fear of crime» and «moral panic» activate the search for effective methods and means of social control over crime. One of the strategies developed is community policing
The real strategy of criminal policy is absent in Russia. There are some
The current punishment system in Russia stipulates the following types of criminal punishment: the death penalty (Art. 59 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 1996 – CC RF); life imprisonment (Art. 57); deprivation of freedom (Art. 56); limitation of freedom (up to 5 years, Art. 53); arrest (up to 6 months, Art. 54); corrective labor (up to 2 years, Art. 50); compulsory labor (up to 240 hours, Art. 49); fines (Art. 46); deprivation of the right to hold a certain position or to conduct certain activities (up to 5 years, Art. 47); confiscation of property (Art. 52); and the deprivation of military or special titles (Art. 48). In addition, military personnel may be sentenced to serve in special disciplinary units (up to 2 years, Art. 55) and there are various compulsory measures of education and supervision for minors (14-17 years, Art. 90).
The last Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (CC RF) from 1996 contains very severe kinds of punishment: death penalty, life imprisonment, and deprivation of freedom for 20 years. In no other previous Criminal Codes of Russia, including during Stalin's period, were there any sanctions like life imprisonment, up to 30 years. Moreover, some kinds of probation and parole (deprivation of freedom with suspended sentence) have been excluded from the new CC RF. In fact, the last amendments to the Criminal Code (December, 2003) were steps toward liberalization, but a very timid step.
There is a moratorium of the death penalty from 1997, but the Russian Parliament («Duma») does not ratify this.