Ventilation
Object and subject of the resocialization process in Yiwu. Basic Research

Object and subject of the resocialization process in Yiwu. Basic Research

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER I . OBJECTIVES OF SPECIFIC TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS 6

CHAPTER I I . PSYCHOLOGICAL BASES OF RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTED 16

2.1 Subject and tasks of correctional psychology 16

2.2 Psychological aspects of the problem of punishment and correction of convicts 18

2.3 Psychology of individuals serving sentences 23

2.4 Psychological foundations of resocializing activities in correctional institutions 28

CHAPTER III. OPTIMAL TERMS OF ISOLATION FROM SOCIETY AS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTED CONVICTS AND PROBLEMS OF APPLYING LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND THE DEATH PENALTY 33

CONCLUSION 56

REFERENCES 60

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, Russian legislation in the field of execution of criminal penalties has undergone significant changes, to a certain extent taking into account international legal standards. However, as practice shows, there have been no fundamental changes in ensuring the rights of convicts and employees of the penal system (hereinafter referred to as the penal system). Many provisions reflecting the rights of persons held in correctional colonies (EC) are partly declarative in nature; the mechanism for their implementation has not been worked out and is difficult to apply.

At the same time, actual imprisonment for a certain period of time was imposed in 32.4% of all sentences in 2004, and minors made up 12.2% of the total number of convicts. The number of minors sentenced to imprisonment remains generally consistently high and amounts to 14,732 people.

Failure to respect the rights of minors and the lack in some cases of the possibility of their implementation do not allow achieving the goals of penal legislation and do not deter former convicts from committing new crimes. Persons who have served imprisonment in educational colonies, returning to society, spread and promote criminal traditions and customs among their peers and people younger than them, which supports the criminogenic potential of society. In recent years, the number of identified teenagers aged 14-15 who committed crimes has remained virtually unchanged, and their share among all juvenile offenders fluctuated slightly from 27.7% in 2000 to 30.3% in 2004.

An important factor influencing the state of the penitentiary system is the humanization and democratization of the process of execution of criminal penalties, bringing it into line with international standards.

But adjustments to punitive policies must be carried out within the legal framework established and implemented in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Without developing an understanding of the mechanism for protecting individual rights and freedoms and a systematic approach to solving this problem, it is impossible to build a policy for protecting the rights and interests of the individual, law and order at the proper level.

The elimination of negative phenomena in a correctional colony is facilitated by the implementation of the rights and legitimate interests of convicted minors. They are based on human rights guaranteed by the international community in a number of conventions and treaties.

The complexity and insufficient theoretical elaboration of the content and implementation of the rights of minors deprived of liberty, the reasonable correlation of duties and prohibitions with the scope of the rights in question, and the consideration of international legal standards in this area predetermined the choice of the topic of dissertation research. At the same time, it is known that one of the most difficult legal problems facing the administrations of educational colonies is a reasonable and justified combination of prohibitions and permissions, which makes it possible to ensure effective corrective action for convicts, as well as their socialization and resocialization.

The results of the activities of the penal system, changes in Russian legislation taking into account the requirements and recommendations of European standards and rules are confirmation of the fulfillment of the obligations taken upon the Russian Federation’s accession to the Council of Europe, ratified fundamental international conventions in the field of human rights regarding the execution of criminal penalties. This is indicated by the conclusions of the steering group of experts of the Council of Europe on reforming the penal system of Russia and other international organizations.

However, as practice shows, it is not enough to proclaim human rights; it is important to ensure them, for which it is necessary to develop an effective mechanism for protecting the rights of minors, including by introducing the position of a human rights ombudsman in the Supreme Court and a penitentiary judge for minors. This proposal is in keeping with the spirit of ongoing judicial reform to create juvenile courts that specialize in the administration of juvenile justice and apply international law in criminal matters.

CHAPTER I . OBJECTIVES OF SPECIFIC TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS

The problem of the purposes of punishment is one of the most controversial in the science of criminal law. As rightly noted in the literature, “as long as the institution of criminal punishment exists, it will be legitimate to raise the question of the purposes of its application.”

At the same time, one cannot but agree with the opinion that “the lack of unanimity on rather old, seemingly long-resolved fundamental issues (about the purposes of punishment ) - one of the serious obstacles to the further successful development of our criminal law science.”

Currently, the following goals of criminal punishment are most often indicated in scientific works: correction (moral and legal) of the criminal; punishment; resocialization of the convicted person; crime prevention (general and special) and others I mentioned earlier. In addition, the goal of restoring social justice has recently been actively discussed, which, as is known, is reflected in the current Russian criminal law. The purposes of punishment specified in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (I am omitting the question of the expediency of fixing precisely these purposes of punishment) - restoration of social justice, correction of the convicted person, prevention of the commission of new crimes (Article 43 of the Criminal Code) are applicable to all types of punishment (Article 44 of the Criminal Code), with the exception of cases when the death penalty is imposed - in this case, the purpose of correction is excluded.

At the same time, each type of punishment has its own specifics, including goal setting. In my opinion, in relation to a specific type of punishment, we can talk about specific goals or subgoals of each type of punishment. However, practically no attention is paid to these aspects in the legal literature. Accordingly, the legislation does not indicate the appointment of various types of punishment in any way.

In this regard, we will consider the specific goals (subgoals) of each of the types of criminal punishment designated in the criminal law. It should be noted that the specific goals of individual types of criminal punishment disclosed below are subordinate in nature in relation to the goals of criminal punishment as a whole; specific goals detail the intentions of the state in the event of applying one or another measure of state coercion of a criminal legal nature and, as a rule, determine very specific utilitarian goals.

Restriction of freedom consists of keeping a convicted person in a special institution without isolation from society under conditions of supervision over him (Article 53 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This type of punishment is new to Russian criminal law. At the same time, it is very similar to the previously used suspended sentence involving the convicted person to compulsory labor on construction sites of the national economy.

Those sentenced to restriction of freedom are accommodated in dormitories of correctional centers, where they are provided with individual sleeping places and bedding. They are recruited to work in organizations of various forms of ownership. The place of work of the convicted person may be enterprises and organizations located in the area of the correctional center. Convicted persons have all labor rights, with the exception of the rules of hiring, dismissal from work and transfer to another job.

The administration of enterprises and organizations in which those sentenced to restriction of freedom work ensures that they are recruited to work taking into account their state of health and professional training, ensures that they receive, if necessary, primary vocational education or vocational training, and participates in the creation of the necessary living conditions. The administration of the correctional center where the convicts work carries out educational work with those sentenced to restriction of freedom. The active participation of convicts in ongoing educational activities is encouraged and taken into account when determining the degree of their correction.

The issue of mandatory labor for those sentenced to restriction of freedom remains not fully regulated in legislation. The fact is that neither the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation nor the Criminal Executive Code of the Russian Federation contain the corresponding norms. However, some provisions of criminal and penal legislation give grounds for the conclusion that the compulsory labor of convicts is included in the content of this type of punishment. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that, in accordance with Part 1 of Art. 53 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, restriction of freedom can be applied only to persons who have reached the age of eighteen at the time of sentencing. Part five of this article prohibits the imposition of restriction of freedom on persons recognized as disabled people of the first and second groups, women who have reached 55 years of age and men who have reached 60 years of age.

These requirements suggest that restrictions on freedom can only be applied to able-bodied citizens. The validity of such requirements can be explained by the mandatory involvement of a person sentenced to restriction of freedom in labor as an integral part of this type of criminal punishment. In addition, this conclusion also follows from the location of restrictions on freedom in the system of criminal penalties (Article 44 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), which, as is known, are arranged from less stringent to more stringent. If, as shown above, correctional labor is a milder form of punishment and requires compulsory labor for convicts, then, consequently, restriction of freedom as a more severe type of punishment should all the more provide for compulsory labor for convicts.

RESOCIALIZATION

(from lat. re - a prefix indicating a repeated, renewable action, and socialis - public) - English resocialization; German Resozialisierung. 1. Secondary socialization, which occurs throughout the life of an individual in connection with changes in his attitudes, goals, norms and values of life. 2. The process of adaptation of a deviant individual to life without acute conflicts.

Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009

See what “RESOCIALIZATION” is in other dictionaries:

See Socialization... Legal Dictionary

RESOCIALIZATION- SOCIALIZATION… Legal encyclopedia

- (lat. re (repeated, renewed action) + lat. socialis (social), English resocialization, German Resozialisierung) this is repeated socialization that occurs throughout life... ... Wikipedia

resocialization- 2.1.32 resocialization: The return or strengthening of social ties, the individual’s assimilation of values and norms that differ from those previously acquired, a type of personal change in which a mature individual adopts a type of behavior different from that adopted by him... ... Dictionary-reference book of terms of normative and technical documentation

resocialization- resocializacija statusas T sritis Kūno kultūra ir sportas apibrėžtis Patirties perėmimas, naujų vertybių, įgūdžių išsiugdymas vietoje ankstesnių, netvirtai išugdytų arba pasenusių veiklos vyksme. Resocializacija svarbi užbaigus sportinę karjerą.… … Sporto terminų žodynas

- (see SOCIALIZATION) ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Economics and Law

Resocialization- (re + lat. socialis – public). One of the aspects of rehabilitation. Characterized by the return or strengthening of social ties, the elimination of manifestations of social disadaptation... Explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms

resocialization- see socialization... Large legal dictionary

Resocialization- (in Lat. socialis - social) - aspect of rehabilitation, means restoring interrupted or strengthening social connections of an individual weakened by mental disorder and related circumstances... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

RESOCIALIZATION- (from the Latin re prefix indicating repeated, renewable action, and socialis public) English. resocialization; German Resozialisierung. 1. Secondary socialization, which occurs throughout the life of an individual in connection with changes in his... ... Explanatory dictionary of sociology

As already noted, socialization goes through stages that coincide with the so-called life cycles. They mark the most important milestones in a person’s biography, which may well serve as qualitative stages in the formation of the social “I”: admission to a university (student life cycle), marriage (family life cycle), choice of profession and employment (labor cycle), military service (military cycle), retirement (pension cycle). Life cycles are associated with a change in social roles, with the acquisition of a new status, abandonment of previous habits, environment, friendly contacts, and changes in the usual way of life. Each time, moving to a new step, entering a new cycle, a person has to relearn a lot. This process breaks down into two stages, called in sociology desocialization And resocialization.

Desocialization and resocialization are two sides of the same process: adult, or continued, socialization.

Desocialization- this is the loss or conscious rejection of learned values, norms, social roles, habitual

lifestyle. It can be short and long, more intense and less intense, voluntary and forced. A person’s behavior in a crowd is a clear example of desocialization. People are losing their humanity and what they have learned in public life. Personality is leveled, individuality dissolves in a faceless and aggressive mass. In a crowd, individual and status differences, norms and taboos that operate under normal conditions, lose their meaning.

Depending on the reasons that caused it, desocialization entails fundamentally different consequences for the individual.

In childhood and adolescence, while an individual is brought up in a family and school, as a rule, no drastic changes occur in his life, excluding divorce or death of parents, continued upbringing in a boarding school or orphanage. His socialization proceeds smoothly and represents the accumulation of new knowledge, values, and norms. The first major change occurs only with entry into adulthood. Although the socialization process continues at this age, it changes significantly. Now desocialization (rejecting the old) and resocialization (acquiring the new) come to the fore.

Manifestations of desocialization are declassing And lumpenization population. A striking example of desocialization is committing crimes, which means a violation of the most significant norms and an encroachment on the most protected values. The commission of a crime already indicates a certain degree of desocialization of the subject: by this he demonstrates his rejection of the basic values of society.

Objective possibility desocialization of convicts is caused by a complex of interrelated factors that are fully inherent only in punishment in the form of imprisonment, namely: the forced isolation of individuals from society; their inclusion in same-sex groups on an equal basis; strict regulation of behavior in all spheres of life.

The prominent American sociologist Erving Goffman, who carefully studied these, as he put it, “total institutions,” identified the following signs of resocialization in extreme conditions:

1) isolation from the outside world(high walls, bars, special passes, etc.);
2) constant communication with the same people, with whom the individual works, rests, sleeps;
3) loss of previous identification, which occurs through the ritual of dressing up (shedding civilian clothes and putting on a special uniform);
4) renaming, replacing the old name with a “number” and obtaining a status (“soldier”, “prisoner”, “sick”);
5) replacing old furnishings with new ones, impersonal;
6) unlearning old habits, values, customs and getting used to new ones;
7) loss of freedom of action.

When exposed to extreme social conditions, a person can not only become desocialized, but also morally degrade, since the upbringing and socialization that a person received in childhood could not prepare him for survival in such conditions. These are the conditions faced by those who end up in concentration camps, prisons and colonies, psychiatric hospitals, and in some cases serving in the army. Systematic humiliation of the individual, physical violence up to a real threat to life, slave labor, and the cruelty of punishment put people on the brink of physical survival.

During prison desocialization, a person becomes morally degraded and alienated from the world to such an extent that his return to society is often impossible. An indicator that in this case we are dealing with desocialization (weaning off life in a normal society), and not with resocialization (restoring life skills in a normal society), are relapses (repeated crimes), a return to prison norms and habits after release.

Resocialization means the assimilation of new values, roles, skills instead of the old ones, insufficiently learned or outdated. In foreign literature, this is understood as the replacement of old patterns of behavior and attitudes with new ones as we move from one stage of the life cycle to another. Resocialization is a process re-socialization. An adult is forced to go through it in cases where he finds himself in an alien culture. In this case, he is obliged, as an adult, to learn basic things that local residents have known since childhood.

For example, being transferred to the reserve essentially represents a process of resocialization, since you have to give up some value guidelines and get used to others that are significantly different from the old ones. As empirical data show, the process of adaptation of professional military families to civilian life is difficult and painful.

One of the main goals of criminal punishment is the resocialization of criminals (the goal of correction). Moreover, resocialization is deliberate and planned, since, for example, the administration of a colony for juvenile delinquents intends to re-educate a young man, creating opportunities for him to receive an education that he did not have before, and pays for the work of teachers and psychologists. Resocialization is also one of the main areas of prevention of recidivism. To reduce the likelihood of committing a repeat crime, it is necessary to neutralize the negative consequences of imprisonment and facilitate the adaptation of those released to the conditions of free life. By providing assistance in employment and everyday life, restoration of socially useful connections, government agencies and public organizations contribute to the resocialization of those who have served their sentences. If the process of resocialization proceeds normally, the likelihood of reoffending is sharply reduced.

Thus, resocialization And desocialization– these are two states, or forms of manifestation, of socialization. The first talks about retraining in new social conditions (emigration to another country). The second indicates the loss of previously acquired social experience in extreme conditions (imprisonment). Both can be deep (cause personality degradation) and superficial (accompany normal human life cycles).

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER I . OBJECTIVES OF SPECIFIC TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS 6

CHAPTER I I . PSYCHOLOGICAL BASES OF RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTED 16

2.1 Subject and tasks of correctional psychology 16

2.2 Psychological aspects of the problem of punishment and correction of convicts 18

2.3 Psychology of individuals serving sentences 23

2.4 Psychological foundations of resocializing activities in correctional institutions 28

CHAPTER III. OPTIMAL TERMS OF ISOLATION FROM SOCIETY AS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTED CONVICTS AND PROBLEMS OF APPLYING LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND THE DEATH PENALTY 33

CONCLUSION 56

REFERENCES 60

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I . OBJECTIVES OF SPECIFIC TYPES OF PUNISHMENTS

Such an unclear legislative position regarding forced labor during the execution of restrictions on freedom creates certain difficulties in more fully defining the punitive component of this type of punishment. Bearing in mind the above conclusion about the compulsory labor of those sentenced to restriction of freedom, we can say that the punishment for the execution of restriction of freedom is represented by restrictions on certain labor rights, as well as restrictions on freedom of movement. A certain moral and psychological impact is also created by the environment of supervision over them. Accordingly, the specific purpose of restricting freedom as a type of criminal punishment, in my opinion, is to reduce the scope of some labor rights of the convicted person, as well as the choice of place of residence at his own discretion, carried out without isolating the convicted person from society while serving the sentence.

Arrest consists of keeping a person in conditions of strict isolation from society (Article 54 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). As A.V. believes Naumov, “an arrest is a kind of reminder to the criminal of what criminal punishment means, that this type of punishment can be followed by long-term imprisonment”1.

This type of punishment was previously known to Russian criminal law. Currently, the period of arrest can range from one to six months. A person sentenced to arrest is held in a special institution of the penal system - an arrest house, which provides for conditions of fairly strict legal restrictions associated with deprivation of free movement, as well as restrictions on a number of civil rights and freedoms. Many researchers speak in connection with arrest as a type of criminal punishment about its shock effect on the convicted person.

It is assumed that as a result of short-term intensive punitive influence, the convicted person will refuse to commit crimes in the future.

It should also be borne in mind that at present this type of criminal punishment is not carried out due to the lack of arrest houses, which, in turn, is explained by the difficult economic situation in the country. Thus, the maintenance and functioning of arrest houses requires more than thirty-two billion rubles, which, if we bear in mind the practice of financing the Russian penal system in recent years, seems impossible to provide1.

In this regard, the timing of the actual execution of the arrest in Russia remains open.

Judging by the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, arrest should be used for committing crimes of minor or medium gravity. However, those punitive elements mentioned above are in conflict with this circumstance. The fact is that the legislator, as indicated, for arrest, provides for conditions of strict isolation, while, for example, for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a certain period, which is more severe, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation does not say anything about strict isolation. I believe that since arrest is a less severe punishment than imprisonment, then the criminal law should not contain provisions indicating more stringent conditions of detention than for imprisonment, that is, in other words, it is necessary to exclude the mention of strict isolation. The above proposals are in some way echoed by the expressed opinion that arrest should be completely excluded from the list of types of criminal penalties (along with restriction of freedom), since it “does not correspond to the policy and goals of criminal punishment.”

Thus, taking into account the above, we can define the specific purpose of arrest as a type of criminal punishment as follows: providing a positive psychological impact on the convicted person in conditions of short-term isolation from society.

Imprisonment for a certain period consists of isolating the convicted person from society by sending him to a penal colony or placing him in a correctional colony of general, strict or special regime or in prison (Article 56 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

In the criminal legal and penal literature, a lot of attention is paid to this type of punishment. In this regard, I will focus my attention only on the most important, in my opinion, problems associated with this institution. First of all, let us draw attention to the fact that in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996, in comparison with the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960, the terms of punishment have been significantly increased. Now imprisonment for a certain period can be 20 years; in the case of partial or complete addition of terms for a total of crimes - up to 25 years, and for a total of sentences - up to 30 years (Article 56 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960, the maximum term of imprisonment was 15 years, and according to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1922 and 1926. - 10 years. Thus, there has been a significant increase in the punitive aspect of custodial punishment during the present century.

This step in legislative practice was carried out contrary to established theoretical views about the inappropriateness of establishing long terms of imprisonment and, on the contrary, the advisability of mitigating penalties by reducing the maximum terms of imprisonment.

I can thus state that the modern institution of imprisonment in terms of establishing the limits of this punishment is to a decisive extent predetermined by the social and criminogenic situation of Russian society, in which the state cannot yet offer a more effective practical means of influencing criminals.

In the current criminal legislation, the number of articles containing this type of punishment is 215, which far exceeds the proportion of other types of punishment. In this sense, the legislator also made a decision contrary to the persistent recommendations of scientists and even international forums. As noted by S.V. Polubinskaya, “this is a humanistic direction (i.e. the use of punishments not related to imprisonment ) ... significantly reduces the negative consequences of the actual use of imprisonment both for convicts and for society as a whole, while contributing to the implementation of the principle of the inevitability of responsibility.”

The generally accepted arguments in favor of reducing the practice of prescribing imprisonment were that this made it easier to adapt convicts to a law-abiding lifestyle, not to break their useful social connections, to reduce the number of convicts in correctional institutions and thereby reduce recidivism. In addition, the implementation of punishment without deprivation of liberty is much cheaper for the state (taxpayers).

It seems that proposals to reduce the use of the institution of imprisonment as a state punitive measure were developed and based, figuratively speaking, in a closed criminal legal and penal space, without due consideration, and often completely ignoring other social phenomena that in one way or another affect to make legislative decisions. In this sense, it should be noted that, in my opinion, there is an insufficient connection with the law of other sciences, and above all sociology, political science, economics, which are engaged in the study of more extensive (than the sciences of the criminal legal complex) problems relating to society as a whole, the strategic directions of its development , while the institution of imprisonment is only a part of social existence. Taking into account the content of imprisonment, I believe that the specific purpose of this type of criminal punishment is the resocialization of the convicted person.

Life imprisonment is established only as an alternative to the death penalty for committing particularly serious crimes that encroach on life, and can be imposed in cases where the court considers it possible not to apply the death penalty (Article 57 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In its content, this type of punishment is practically no different from imprisonment for a certain period; it is no coincidence that in the penal legislation, issues related to its execution are regulated in the section on imprisonment for a certain period.

It should be noted that the introduction of this type of punishment was preceded by a fairly lively discussion in the legal literature. In particular, attention was drawn to the fact that from the point of view of social rehabilitation there are no prospects here, and the very type of this punishment was rejected by the Russian and Soviet science of criminal law.

A number of modern scientists do not consider it appropriate to use this type of punishment.

Without the purpose of going deeper into this discussion, I will limit myself to pointing out that life imprisonment in terms of punitive power exceeds imprisonment for a certain period. Accordingly, the specific purpose of life imprisonment as a type of criminal punishment should, in my opinion, be to protect society from a socially dangerous person.

The death penalty is an exceptional measure of criminal punishment, which can be established only for particularly serious crimes that encroach on life (Article 59 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). There is a huge amount of literature on this type of punishment, and therefore only an essential assessment of the issue under consideration will be given here.

First of all, we note that life is the object of criminal punishment, that is, direct state encroachment on this good for the commission of especially serious crimes (Part 2 of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Part 2 of Article 20 of the Russian Constitution, Art. 44, 49 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Let us draw attention to the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not contain norms providing for the possibility of using the death penalty, and therefore, in my opinion, the correspondence of this act with the real state of affairs in most countries of the world, where the death penalty exists and will probably exist for many years to come.

It also seems that calls and movements for the abolition of the death penalty, as well as for the mitigation of criminal repression in general, overestimate the readiness of society to finally take these steps. In Russia, in the past (starting with Elizaveta Petrovna) and the present, attempts have been made repeatedly to exclude the deprivation of life from the list of criminal penalties, but after a short time the death penalty has each time returned to the criminal law. Currently, this type of punishment is also contained in criminal law. True, in accordance with the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated February 2, 1999, courts of general jurisdiction cannot impose “death” sentences until jury courts are created in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, we must not forget that there is an uncontrollable increase in crime in the country, including serious and especially serious ones, when the right to life is under threat for many law-abiding citizens. Under these conditions, “mercy for the fallen” (primarily murderers and rapists) is unlikely to find understanding in society. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has significantly strengthened sanctions for a number of crimes (for example, for premeditated murder without aggravating circumstances, imprisonment for a term of 6 to 15 years is provided, and it was from 3 to 10), and in general our current criminal law, despite the reduction of crimes , for which the death penalty is possible, is more severe than the previous one. Such trends can, of course, only cause regret. But they reflect the real state of modern society, the individual members of which, as in all previous times, nothing can stop them from committing criminal acts; for the most serious of them, the state is forced to deprive even the “divine” right to life, satisfying public expectations of severe retribution for the evil committed. Society cannot yet act otherwise: here the cumulative emotions (indignation, anger, rage) as a reaction to the crime influence the legislator and the court more strongly than the cumulative reason and sober calculation.

As a result, I believe that the specific purpose of the death penalty as a type of criminal punishment is to retaliate against the convicted person on behalf of society for committing a particularly serious crime, as well as to intimidate other members of society about the possible consequences if a certain particularly serious crime is committed.

To summarize, it can be noted that each type of criminal punishment has its own specific purpose - I formulated my proposals for their content earlier. It cannot be otherwise - otherwise the meaning of dividing punishment into different types would be lost. All these specific goals can be considered subgoals of criminal punishment, bearing in mind that the main goals of punishment are the correction of convicts, the prevention of the commission of new crimes by both the convicted person and other persons, as well as the moral satisfaction of society in partial compensation for the evil caused by the crime - such a formulation in our opinion, it is preferable to restore social justice. Such a construction of the goals of punishment will allow, in my opinion, to implement them with greater efficiency and thereby contribute to the achievement of the tasks facing criminal law as a whole.

CHAPTER I I . PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTS

2.1 Subject and tasks of correctional psychology

Correctional psychology studies the psychological foundations of resocialization - the restoration of previously violated social qualities of an individual necessary for his full functioning in society, problems of the effectiveness of punishment, the dynamics of the personality of a convict in the process of execution of punishment, the formation of his behavioral capabilities in various conditions of the camp and prison regime, features of value orientations and stereotypes of behavior in conditions of social isolation, compliance of correctional legislation with the tasks of correcting convicts.

Resocialization of the personality of convicts is associated, first of all, with their value reorientation, the formation of a mechanism for socially positive goal setting, and the development of strong stereotypes of socially positive behavior in the individual. Creating conditions for the formation of socially adapted individual behavior is the main task of correctional institutions.

Correctional psychology studies the patterns and characteristics of the life of a person serving a sentence, the positive and negative factors of the conditions of social isolation for the personal self-realization of the individual. Correctional workers face the difficult task of diagnosing the personality defects of convicts, developing a well-founded program for correcting these defects, and preventing the numerous negative “influences of prison” ”, which traditionally contribute to the criminalization of individuals.

Solving complex problems of psychodiagnostics and psychocorrection of certain categories of convicts is a task feasible only for relevant specialists in the field of resocialization psychology. In this regard, we note both the acute shortage of relevant personnel and the extreme scientific lack of development of the problems of penitentiary psychology - the theory of personal restructuring, social reconstruction of convicts.

Among the convicts (prisoners) are people who have lost their value orientations in life, many of them suffer from autism (painful social alienation), various mental abnormalities - psychopaths, neurotics, people with extremely reduced mental self-regulation. These people are in dire need of medical, rehabilitation and psychotherapeutic treatment.

The main “sin of prison” is the separation of a person from his social bosom, the destruction of the social ties of the individual, the suppression of his ability to freely set goals, the destruction of his possibility of human self-realization. A person who has forgotten how to plan his behavior during the execution of a criminal sentence is mentally disabled.

The shortest and still preliminary list of prison problems indicates the need for a radical restructuring of the entire methodology of correctional law and a revision of outdated dogmas. First of all, it is necessary to reorganize the activities of the prison itself on modern principles of humanism and human rights.

Currently, in connection with Russia's accession to the Council of Europe, the penitentiary system in our country must comply with international standards. In solving all these problems, scientific and practically oriented modern penitentiary psychology - the science of the internal, mental mechanisms of personality self-reorganization - acquires paramount importance.

2.2 Psychological aspects of the problem of punishment and correction of convicts

In the legal doctrine, punishment is a coercive measure imposed by the court on behalf of the state on persons who have committed a crime, expressed in punishment (a set of legal restrictions established by law corresponding to each type of this measure), pursuing the goals of correction and re-education of convicts, preventing the commission of new crimes by both convicts and other persons and contributing to the eradication of crime.

In psychological terms, correction of a convicted person should be understood as personal psychological correction - correction of individual psychoregulatory defects in the personality of a convicted person, a radical change in the system of value orientations of a criminalized personality.

In legal doctrine, punishment is considered synonymous with punishment. However, from a moral and penitentiary point of view, the interpretation of punishment as retribution is unfounded. Punishment is also immoral as a means of deterring future criminals, because the criminal in this case is considered in isolation from the crime he committed. Historical experience shows that toughening punishment and increasing its punitive impact did not lead to the desired results.

To correct and re-educate a criminal means to carry out a deep personal restructuring, change his personal orientation, and form a new socially adapted style of his life. But is it possible to achieve these goals only through punishment? A person cannot be formed, much less corrected, by the method of intimidation, punishment, or direct brutal coercion. The same punishment affects different people differently.

Correction of a guilty person cannot be achieved only by external influences. This requires repentance - self-removal of guilt by the criminal through its recognition and sincere self-condemnation - repentance.

To correct a guilty person means to carry out a value reorientation, to include the violated social value in the sphere of his shame and conscience.

The penitentiary influence is a spiritual influence. A personality can only change itself from within. External motivations are only a condition for her to make her decisions.

And only that punishment matters which seems fair to a given individual. It is therefore impossible to classify punishment according to the degree of cruelty. A person can even neglect the loss of his life. The majority of convicts assess the punishment imposed on them as excessively harsh, unfair, and undeserved. Bloody murderers, rapists, robbers usually do not show even a shadow of moral self-reproach; Their only self-reproach is blaming themselves for “getting caught.”

The barrier to a criminal's moral self-analysis is the main barrier to his resocialization. A hardened criminal is an individual with a crisis of moral self-analysis, an individual with an atrophied moral self-awareness.

The crisis of moral introspection is not just an individual vice. This mental deformation of the individual has a broad, social base. The past decades of our history have been insensitive to the spiritual problems of the individual; moral categories have been relegated to the category of secondary importance compared to “political literacy.”

Due to certain socio-historical conditions, our society has become criminalized. Social destabilization also affected the activities of the prison. Correctional institutions (CIs) have ceased to solve their main task - to separate the criminal from the conditions of his criminalization, destroy criminal connections and attitudes, and form a system of socially positive connections for the convicted person.

Moreover, the corrupting influence of the criminalized environment here is not only not overcome, but also receives additional incentives: overcrowding, uncontrolled leisure, the ineradicable dominance of the criminal subculture, forcing the environment into antisocial behavior, prison customs and traditions - all this in most cases prevails over the requirements of the administration of the correctional facility .

The hierarchy of the prison community, its “laws”, of course, are well known to the prison administration. She often uses the mechanisms of the criminal environment for the “efficiency” of prison management. Hence the negative attitude of the prison administration towards differentiated treatment of prisoners. In most cases, the paramilitary administration simply does not think about moral resocialization, as well as other subtleties of the human psyche.

“Work makes a person good” - this is the simple totalitarian principle of all activities of our correctional labor system.

As researchers note, correctional officers have almost no information about the identity of convicts. They are not trained to receive and analyze this information. Moreover, they shun trusting relationships with the convicted person. The hidden sides of his soul and intimate experiences are unknown to them. There is an invisible war going on between the administration of the correctional facility and the convicts.

In such “combat” conditions in most correctional institutions, no one intends to engage in the improvement of offenders. On the contrary, the personality strives to be rude, cruel and combat-ready. As for the spiritual dramas and tragedies of the past life, it is better to repress them, self-justify and forget.

In this way, all psychological structures characteristic of the criminal’s personality are consolidated and preserved. The sentence is being served, the process of joining the prison subculture is underway, but not the process of resocialization of the criminal’s personality. Moreover, the individual is further criminalized. This is the main paradox of our prison.

In order for modern correctional institutions to become institutions for the re-socialization of convicts, they themselves must be re-socialized. Their fundamental reorganization and saturation with psychologically and pedagogically competent personnel are necessary. The ritual of church repentance (as well as similar rituals of other faiths) and the system of religious healing of souls are not excluded.

The following can be indicated as general directions of resocialization activities of correctional institutions: psychological diagnostics of the personal characteristics of each convict, identification of specific defects in his general socialization, legal socialization, defects in mental self-regulation; development of a long-term program of individual-personal psychological and pedagogical correction, its phased implementation; implementation of the necessary measures of psychotherapy, relaxation of personal accentuations, psychopathy; full restoration of the individual’s broken social connections, mobilization of his socially positive mental activity, formation of the socially positive sphere of his current and future goal setting based on the restoration of socially positive value orientations; development and implementation of new principles of the regime, its radical humanitarization; organizing a socially positive microenvironment based on positive creative interests, creating conditions for the moral self-expression of the individual in intra-group interpersonal relationships; widespread use of the method of encouraging socially adapted behavior.

2.3 Psychology of individuals serving sentences

Deprivation of a person's freedom, his social isolation is a powerful factor in modifying human behavior. The psyche of each person reacts differently to this factor. But we can identify the main psychological symptoms of human behavior in these essentially extremely tense and sometimes stressful conditions. Prison, colony - disruption of the usual way of life, separation of an individual from family and close people, years of difficult, doomed existence. Prison – increased adaptation difficulties: frequent interpersonal conflicts, hostility of the environment, harsh treatment, poor living conditions, criminal subculture, constant pressure from staff, criminalized group leaders. At the same time, the prisoner’s personality defects become aggravated.

Pre-trial prisons and pre-trial detention centers (SIZOs) are the mournful abode of people whose trial has not yet taken place and who may still be found innocent. But they are already punished by a difficult prison regime, so difficult that, staying for a long time in these unbearable conditions, a person becomes capable of even self-incrimination in order to quickly get into more acceptable conditions of inpatient detention. But even there a stressful environment awaits him.

The first 2–3 months – the period of primary adaptation – are characterized by the most intense mental state of the convict. During this period, a painful breakdown of previously formed life stereotypes occurs, the satisfaction of habitual needs is sharply limited, the hostility of the new microenvironment is acutely experienced, and conflicting emotional states often arise. The feeling of hopelessness and doom becomes a constant negative background to the individual’s self-awareness.

The next period is associated with the value reorientation of the convict, his acceptance of certain norms and values of the microenvironment, and the development of strategies and tactics of behavior in new conditions. Opportunities for survival are being sought. Sooner or later, the convicted person obeys the “laws of the prison.”

These “laws” are simple and cruel, their sanctions are primitive and monotonous - mutilation, beatings, and sometimes deprivation of life.

The identity of the newcomer is checked by the cruel and primitive ritual of “registration”. The individual is faced with a choice: to accept or not to accept the status imposed on him. The decision must be quick and the action extremely intense. The reaction of personal self-preservation is often violent and affective.

What is the reason for such cruel ritual behavior of prisoners? Harsh prison laws stem from the harsh conditions of prison existence. These laws are approximately the same in prisons around the world. The system of prison prohibitions and restrictions itself directs the socio-psychological organization of the prison microenvironment along a certain direction. And the more severe the conditions of the prison regime, the more severe the laws of life of its inhabitants.

Humiliating universal control, strict regulation of all functions of life, deliberately cruel treatment, the label of third-rate, the inability to assert oneself in socially developed ways, the loss of every opportunity for personification force the “convict” to seek self-realization in the sphere of the prison looking glass.

Almost all prisoners are overwhelmed by a passionate desire to restore their self-worth. A person in prison cannot improve his situation through active work. Additional benefits here can be obtained only by brute seizure, violent division - and always at the expense of another. A person who has not established himself in society strives for self-affirmation in an asocial world. Being not socialized, not covered by the culture of society, she especially quickly falls into the sphere of an asocial subculture.

However, here too the individual is faced with social hierarchization, social stigmatization, and a fierce struggle for self-affirmation. Personal status in a criminalized environment depends on the physical strength of the individual, his criminal “experience,” tolerance (resistance to difficulties) during the adaptation period, cruelty and cynicism in dealing with the “lower classes.”

One of the phenomena of the criminal subculture is stratification (from the Latin “stratum” - layer) - a social-group stratification of a criminalized community. Each layer of the criminal world essentially has its own subculture.

The psyche of the convict is looking for a way out of the dull, painful and monotonous everyday life. Substitute phenomena arise, the past is experienced figuratively, “life in the imagination” arises, former self-realization is hypertrophied, surrogates for self-affirmation arise - the personality strives for overcompensation. Hence the special expressiveness, demonstrativeness, and agitated behavior.

The entire way of life of a convicted person is determined by the regime of the corresponding type of correctional facility. By implementing a set of certain legal restrictions, the correctional facility regime creates for the convicted person all the hardships, suffering and deprivations that are due to him. Each type of imprisonment has its own regime.

The administration of the correctional institution has the right to exercise coercive influence. On the side of the convicted person is the problematic right to be protected by the law and to seek the exercise of his legal rights.

The regime of a correctional institution is the regime of life of a convicted person, the strict schedule of his daily life activities - this is both a means of implementing punishment and a means of correction and re-education. All other means of influencing the convicted person are related to the regime.

The correctional facility regime is designed to develop positive behavior skills among convicts. However, in most cases, the regime is reduced to only a set of legal restrictions; it does not include training in personal self-creation. Assigning the main educational task of the educational institution to the regime is a flawed theoretical concept.

It has been established that staying in harsh prison conditions for more than five years causes irreversible changes in the human psyche. In persons who have served a long sentence, the mechanisms of social adaptation are so disturbed that every third of them needs the help of a psychotherapist and even a psychiatrist.

The isolation of the prison environment, extremely limited opportunities to satisfy basic needs, debilitating regulation of behavior, monotonous squalor of the environment, violence and bullying by cellmates, and in some cases, prison staff, inevitably form stable negative personality traits. Personal deformations in many cases become irreversible.

Punishment under criminal law, being punishment for a crime committed, is carried out for the correction and re-education of those convicted and is not intended to cause physical suffering or humiliation of human dignity. This is the dogma of law. What is the truth of life? Staying in places of confinement and inhuman living conditions destroy the last hope for reconciliation between the convicted person and society. The perception of the environment as alien, dangerous and hateful moves to the subconscious level. The antisocial attitude is finally consolidated.

The concept of shame and conscience, which should be reanimated, finally disappears from the consciousness of the convicted person. The torment of forced stay in herd conditions leads to the primitivization of the personality, its extreme coarsening, a sharp decrease in the level of critical self-esteem of the individual, to the loss of self-esteem and the remnants of social identification.

The low level of material well-being in our society leads to extreme poverty in places of deprivation of liberty. Every seventh convict is doomed to contract tuberculosis and other chronic illnesses. Medical care is negligible. But material poverty is immeasurably aggravated by spiritual poverty, the poverty of interpersonal relations, and the everyday humiliation of human dignity.

Only those who can save their inner world without entering into acute conflicts with the outside world are saved in prison.

2.4 Psychological foundations of resocializing activities in correctional institutions

The activities of correctional institutions are aimed at solving two main tasks - the execution of criminal punishment and the resocialization of the convicted person's personality - the formation of qualities necessary for adapted behavior in society.

The main feature of the educational activities of correctional institutions is the inability of convicts to educate. The very fact of identifying an individual in a correctional institution indicates the presence of deep socio-psychological defects and personal anomalies. To resocialize the individual, correctional officers must know the personal characteristics of each convict. This task is complex and time-consuming. Its solution requires special psychological knowledge, orientation in the structure of the personality, the dynamics of its behavior, and the means of influence that are relevant (meaningful) for it.

Without an individually targeted system of educational influences, educational institutions cannot solve the tasks assigned to them. The success of individual educational work depends on the pedagogical and psychological competence of the teacher. Here we can give only a brief overview of the main problems of educational work in educational institutions.

Sources of obtaining information about a person and methods of studying it:

· Study of the materials of the personal file of the convicted person and other documents - familiarization with the autobiography and characteristics given by various institutions and the investigator, with the contents of the verdict and other materials of the personal file, identification of the value-oriented and behavioral characteristics of the convicted person, his role status in the criminal community, behavior in the process preliminary investigation and trial, analysis of publications, correspondence, social connections.

· Objective and participant observation - obtaining and analyzing data about the personal qualities directly demonstrated by the convict in various conditions of life - features of relationships with people depending on their group status, preferred style of behavior, objects of increased orientation, deformation of certain social qualities, reference groups, “vulnerable places" of the psyche, areas of increased sensitivity.

· Study conversation (survey method) – obtaining information from a convicted person according to a specific program in order to identify personal positions, the system of his relations to various socially significant phenomena, the life path of an individual, the possibilities of relying on the positive qualities of an individual. When communicating with a convicted person, the educator must know where and when the convicted person was born, his most vivid impressions at various periods of his life, the way of family life, the characteristics of family relationships, ethnic customs and traditions, interaction with the microenvironment; the most significant psycho-traumatic life circumstances; at what age and under what circumstances did he commit his first torts (misdemeanors) and his first crime, etc.

· Analysis of medical (somatic and psychotherapeutic) examination data - familiarization with the state of physical and mental health of the convicted person, with recommendations for organizing his work and life in connection with possible personal accentuations and psychopathic manifestations.

· Analysis of data on the mental characteristics of the individual - intellectual characteristics (level of intellectual capabilities, breadth of outlook, depth and validity of judgments), characteristics of the volitional and emotional sphere (features of decision-making, their transitivity or intransitivity, independence and persistence of implementation, the sphere of impulsive manifestations, predominant emotional states, tendency to affective behavior).

· Analysis of the results of various educational influences (development of a system of means of effective resocializing influence on a given person, correction of the system of educational influences).

The effectiveness of educational influence largely depends on the establishment of psychological contact with the convicted person. Such contact is possible only on the basis of knowledge of his individual characteristics, preferred orientations and actualized interests. Adequate diagnosis of personal psychological barriers and the individual’s psychological defense system is also essential.

When interacting with an individual, it is necessary to consider him in the system of group connections. A person always represents a certain small group. A group, a community of prisoners, determines the behavior of its members. The fundamental principle of penitentiary: while implementing the punitive function, correctional institutions must form the ability of convicts to live in conditions of self-organization. The long-term existence of an individual in conditions of global surveillance and regulation suppresses the mechanism of mental self-regulation and, in essence, makes a person incapable of subsequent life in freedom. Under these conditions, an almost irreversible process of personality regression occurs.

It is dangerous to keep a person in a crowd for a long time - a socially unorganized community. Under such conditions, an anemic, nihilistic type of behavior is formed and firmly established - social alienation is strengthened, behavior moves to the emotional-impulsive level of regulation.

The humanity of punishment should be understood not as a reduction in its punitive function, but as such an organization in which punishment would not eradicate the human qualities of the person being punished, would not suppress his faith and hope in the possibility of being a full-fledged member of society.

The experience of some correctional institutions shows that even with the existing legal regulation of the regime, some improvements are possible: equipping local zones and isolated areas for small groups of convicts, improving sanitary and living conditions, increasing work motivation, encouraging work initiative, aesthetic design of the everyday environment, intellectual saturation of leisure time , strengthening social ties with the external environment.

As researchers note, the number of general and industrial offenses is sharply decreasing as a modern industrial and production base of the correctional institution is created, the diversity of labor processes and an increase in material interest in the results of labor.

Society should not rely only on harsh conditions of detention for convicts in places of deprivation of liberty. His patronage activities are no less important. Goodness and mercy always prevail over vindictiveness and cruelty. You cannot defeat evil with evil. It is possible to recreate the human in a person only by human means.

The final and most crucial period of resocialization is the readaptation of the released person to life in freedom, in new, usually difficult, living conditions that require significant effort. Household unsettlement, disruption of previous social ties, lack of housing, wariness of relatives and friends, a cold look in HR departments for hiring labor, the heavy burden of social rejection - a situation that is especially dangerous for those who have already had an acute conflict with society. And in this situation, not only the psychological attitude towards a new way of life is important, a set of social conditions is necessary for the implementation of this attitude.

The greatest likelihood of a “breakdown”—committing a repeat crime—occurs in the first year after release. This year should be a year of social rehabilitation of the released person with appropriate social and legal support, creating conditions for the start of his new life. Of course, we also need social control, checking whether the behavior of the person being rehabilitated corresponds to social expectations. But social control must be accompanied by the assistance of patronage authorities in strengthening the positive connections of the rehabilitated person with the social environment.

Helping a person who has stumbled to regain his human essence is one of the purposes of society.

CHAPTER III. OPTIMAL TERMS OF ISOLATION FROM SOCIETY AS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE RE-SOCIALIZATION OF CONVICTED CONVICTS AND PROBLEMS OF APPLYING LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND THE DEATH PENALTY

Temporary factors of a convicted person’s stay in conditions of imprisonment require the solution of certain tasks. The imprisonment of convicts is aimed at protecting society from criminals who pose a danger to it, correcting them and returning them to freedom prepared for useful activities.

Many legal scholars, psychologists, and teachers have devoted their research to this problem. However, the problem of terms of imprisonment, from our point of view, remains relevant and its solution requires the efforts of specialists in various fields of knowledge.

For example, a proposal was made to create separate colonies for persons sentenced to short terms of imprisonment, in other words, to separate the detention of various categories of “short-term prisoners”: youth and older convicts; those convicted for the first time from those convicted repeatedly; sick, elderly, alcoholics, drug addicts, as well as persons who have committed crimes based on religious beliefs.

This was motivated not only by the need to eliminate mutual harmful influences, but also by the expediency of creating a special regime, organizing a special labor process, ensuring a differentiated educational approach and its appropriate organization.

Scientists and practitioners of the penal system unanimously note the low effectiveness of short terms of imprisonment.

Arrest in its essence is not much different from deprivation of liberty, except perhaps in its inherent short-term nature and harsh conditions of detention. In other words, those sentenced to arrest are subject to the conditions of detention that are established according to the general regime in prison, which involves their detention in locked cells. According to A.I. Zubkov, the conditions for serving a sentence of arrest in the Russian Penitentiary Commission are formulated even more harshly than in a strict prison regime. He believes that this institution should be significantly reformed, bringing the conditions for serving the sentence in accordance with the personality of the perpetrators and the severity of the acts they committed, and then put into operation if resources are available.

It seems that arrest as a form of punishment will not find application in the legal field of today's Russia in the near future, since the limited time frame for its execution, as already mentioned, cannot produce positive results. And now is not the time to engage in the construction of arrest houses, the construction of which, according to calculations by the All-Russian Research Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, will require billions of rubles, not counting other expenses (personnel, technical support, etc.). In total, according to preliminary estimates, from 7 to 10 billion rubles are needed to ensure the execution of the arrest. Today it is impossible or difficult to organize the execution of such a type of punishment as compulsory labor.

A.V. Brilliantov sees a way out of this situation in the possibility of executing certain types of punishment on the basis of available forces and means, for example, in organizing the execution of restrictions on freedom on the basis of colony settlements, and opposes the attempts being made to exclude from the punishment system such types as compulsory labor and restriction of freedom and arrest, justifying this by the fact that alternatives to these types of punishments are not yet provided. A.V. Brilliantov is right that the new system of criminal penalties has been created for more than one year, and it can be destroyed with one ill-considered legal act. In this case, one should “take a closer look,” as N.A. wrote. Struchkov, approach the issue under study, delve deeply into the essence of the matter, and then make a final decision.

According to V.P. Artamonov, the inexpediency of the premature introduction of such types of punishment as arrest and restriction of freedom, and the presence of difficulties in the implementation of punishment in the form of compulsory labor can be considered proven. The exclusion of these punishments from the punishment system or the introduction of a moratorium on their use seems to him to be the only correct solution.

It is known that any isolation of an individual from the microenvironment, even for a short period of time, is more likely to have negative consequences than the expected positive ones.

It should be borne in mind that punishment is inherently contradictory. As G.F. rightly notes. Khokhryakov, this is especially noticeable when it comes to punishment in the form of imprisonment. In an effort to adapt the convict to life in society, he is separated from society; Wanting to teach useful and socially active behavior, they are kept in conditions of strict regime regulation, which develops passivity and embitterment.

If arrest is introduced in the future, it is necessary: first to study foreign experience in its use, create the appropriate material and technical base, look into our own history and, perhaps, revive the practice of pre-revolutionary Russian legislation, which provided for the possibility of serving a sentence in the form of arrest at the place of residence. We should agree with the statement of V.P. Artamonov on the advisability of introducing a moratorium on the use of arrest at the present time and in subsequent years.

In judicial practice, with the entry into force of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996, a suspended sentence of imprisonment under Art. 73 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (46-52% of the total number of those sentenced to imprisonment).

In the interests of increasing the effectiveness of the resocialization of those sentenced to imprisonment, it would be advisable to abandon short terms of imprisonment, establishing in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation a minimum term of this punishment of 2

years, provided that it is impossible to apply other types of criminal punishment. The focus on expanding the use of non-custodial sentences is widely used in a number of foreign countries.

In March 2003 The State Duma received presidential proposals to amend the Criminal Procedure and Criminal Codes. They were approved by the Lower House in the first reading on April 23, 2003 and postponed until the adoption of changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure. In mid-October, the State Duma in the first reading adopted the draft law “On the introduction of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and other legislative acts in accordance with the Federal Law “On Amendments and Additions to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.” Now the codes will be applied synchronously.

It is important that the new norms will have a retroactive effect, that is, convicted persons will have the opportunity to commute the sentence that is already being executed.

According to the developers of the draft law, the entire system in the new regime should work in the near future. This means that there is a review of several tens of thousands of criminal cases ahead and a real chance for thousands of people to be released.

Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation Yu.I. Kalinin said that, according to his department's forecasts, the number of prisoners will soon be reduced by about 150 thousand people.

In this regard, the issues of social adaptation of those released from punishment arise extremely acutely. It is important to note here that the intended trend of humanization of criminal policy can bring the desired results only if it is urgently and purposefully implemented.

Russian judicial practice, obviously, should take the path of a civilized attitude towards persons who have committed crimes. To this end, it is important to create the necessary prerequisites, both legal and organizational. The time has come to abandon the opinion that has taken root in law enforcement agencies (police, prosecutors, courts), according to which increased criminal repression and widespread use of imprisonment for those who have committed crimes can seriously affect the state of crime in the country. The punitive policies of many civilized countries of the world show that cruelty in the fight against crime has never led to positive results, does not lead today and will not lead in the future; on the contrary, it contributes to the intensification of the aggressiveness of the criminal world. The main direction in ensuring the law-abiding behavior of convicts should be various incentives, and not the severity of the regime.

The political and state leadership of Russia is faced with the task of responding to the challenge posed by crime. This can be done by taking scientifically grounded, proactive political, legal and organizational measures to reduce the crime rate of society and bring the country out of the social crisis, which is largely achieved by amendments to the Criminal Code recently approved by the State Duma.

In addition, President of the Russian Federation V.V. At the end of October 2003, Putin instructed the Government to develop “a special system to combat corruption - similar to those that exist in other countries, while the Head of State noted that everyone must be equal before the law, otherwise we will never cope with solving problems creating an economically efficient and socially verified tax system, we will never teach or force people to pay taxes, contributions to social funds, including the Pension Fund, we will never break organized crime and corruption.”

In the context of the above, attention should be paid to the particular legal significance of the fundamentally new approach expressed by the President of the Russian Federation to the interpretation of the constitutional principle of equality of citizens before the law. In paragraph 1 of Art. 19 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation especially emphasizes equality in the sphere of justice: “Everyone is equal before the law and the court.” The speech of the President of the Russian Federation states: “Everyone must be equal before the law.” Based on this interpretation of the above principle, it turns out that all citizens of Russia not only have the right to equality in all spheres of public life, but also must (are obligated) to be equal before the law. In our opinion, this approach is completely justified, therefore there is every reason to make appropriate changes to paragraph 1 of Art. 19 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and also bring into conformity with the stated principle of equality before the law, enshrined in Art. 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

I would like to return once again to the idea of the extremely important mission of the legislative branch in the preparation and adoption of laws through which the pressing social problems facing Russian society can and should be solved.

Unfortunately, there are many norms in criminal and penal legislation that are declarative in nature and do not work, just as the constitutional principle that “everyone is equal before the law and the court” does not work.

The law works when it is fair, understandable and predictable; it should not be permeated with a spirit of vengeance with a punitive overtone. The convicted person “feels in his gut” and reacts sharply to those accents of the law with which the legislator oppresses him. That is why deputies of the State Duma, politicians and other public figures, when passing laws, must clearly realize that neither severe sanctions nor the fear of being punished have such a preventive force as to block the formation of motivation leading to a socially dangerous act. The genesis of committing crimes is always associated with socio-psychological determinants, which are leading in the mechanism of committing a crime. This is a reality that must be reckoned with and taken into account when forming a policy to combat crime.

Imprisonment should not be the predominant sanction for a crime. Therefore, as already noted, types of punishment that do not involve imprisonment should be more widely used. And this can be achieved by including in the sanctions articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 3-4 alternative to imprisonment as a form of punishment. Only then will the courts have a real opportunity to implement a policy of saving repressive measures when imposing punishment. This proposal is fully consistent with the general principles of sentencing established in Art. 60 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. A distinctive feature of the newly adopted Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is that for the first time it contains a provision according to which a more severe type of punishment from among those provided for the crime committed is assigned only if a less severe type of punishment cannot ensure the achievement of the goals of punishment.

Courts should be especially careful when sentencing a person to a long or especially long term of imprisonment. The reason for the imposition of unfair or illegal sentences, which sometimes end in conviction to a long term of imprisonment, and in the past, for example, for murder, to the death penalty, is the “qualification of the act with reserve,” i.e. under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for liability for a more serious crime. At the same time, not so long ago there were facts when persons who committed serious crimes against the person were sentenced to short terms of imprisonment or suspended sentences, and those prosecuted for rape, robbery and robbery were handed over to the public bail.

Until now, the question of the concept and criteria for the effectiveness of long and especially long terms of imprisonment has been controversial.

Long terms of imprisonment are considered to be terms ranging from 5 to 10 years.

In the scientific literature, along with the concept of “especially long sentences,” the term “extra-long sentences” (over 10 years) of imprisonment is used. These terms of imprisonment are ineffective from the point of view of correction of convicts, since after 7-8 years of actually serving this sentence, convicts experience a mental breakdown, leading to further destruction of the personality. Long terms of imprisonment, even from an economic point of view, are unprofitable, since when they are used, the circulation of convicts in correctional institutions is significantly hampered, which leads to their rapid overcrowding and, consequently, the need to build new institutions.

The results of the census of convicts in 1999 show that over the last decade the number of convicts sent to colony settlements has sharply decreased (from 8.9 to 3.4%). Increasing the complexity of the composition of convicts reduced transfers to colony settlements by 1.5 times for persons with positive characteristics. The proportion of persons sent to colony settlements where those convicted of crimes committed through negligence are kept has decreased significantly.

Census materials showed that courts most often impose sentences of 3 to 5 years and 5 to 8 years, regardless of the number of convictions.

According to the 1999 census of convicts, more than half of those in prison committed crimes with a criminal record, and 6.1% - with a particularly dangerous recidivism. The census of convicts also showed that 20% of convicts served their sentences up to 3 years inclusive, 22.4% from 3 to 5 inclusive, 47.5% from 5 to 10 inclusive, and 10.1% over 10 years.

Practice shows that the execution of criminal punishment is influenced by two polar ages - young and old.

When assigning punishment to older people, the court must take into account that long sentences are ineffective for them, since this category of offenders has already developed their strong views and convictions, and it is much more difficult to reorient them than young people. As a rule, at this time the body begins to wither, the course of physiological processes is disrupted and, ultimately, the goals of punishment become unattainable. Studies of recidivism show that one of its main reasons is that the first time the perpetrator was given an insufficiently effective punishment, or as a result of a long stay in captivity, the convict lost confidence and the opportunity to find his place in society, in other words, to restore the status of free citizen, adapt to new conditions.

According to Part 2 of Art. 56 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, imprisonment is established for a period of 6 months to 20 years. In the case of partial or complete addition of terms of imprisonment when imposing sentences for a set of crimes, the maximum term of imprisonment cannot be more than 25 years, and for a set of sentences - more than 30 years. Such long terms of this type of punishment are unjustified from a social, economic, pedagogical, or psychological point of view.

The provisions of the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the terms of imprisonment can hardly be considered the result of scientifically based recommendations on the terms of imprisonment. It seems that in terms of maximum terms of imprisonment, criminal legislation will in the future be changed in the direction of reducing them. It is known that severity and cruelty, just like humanity and justice, cannot have the same impact on all people. A criminal, as a thinking being, is structured in such a way that humanity and human attitude towards him can have a positive influence on one, incline him to reorient from a criminal lifestyle to a law-abiding one, for another - such an approach is unacceptable, he will continue to behave as before negatively, but nevertheless less in response to a humane attitude towards him will not become more dangerous for society, and the third, on the contrary, will certainly respond to the cruelty shown to him with even greater cruelty, for evil, as a rule, begets evil. So, J.-J. Rousseau wrote that the severity of punishments is only a useless means invented by shallow minds to replace fear with fear for the respect that they cannot achieve in any other way. In addition, the great philosopher also noted that “frequent executions are always a sign of weakness and negligence of the government.”

The state's criminal policy, reflected in the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, cannot be considered humane; it is punitive. It needs to be radically changed, since it really leads to the criminalization of society, “to nowhere.” According to the legislator, the introduction of new types of criminal punishment alternative to imprisonment (arrest, restriction of freedom, compulsory labor) was supposed to reduce the use of imprisonment. However, the protracted economic crisis, which resulted in unemployment and poverty for the majority of the country's population, turned out to be a serious obstacle to the humanization of criminal policy.

Punishment in the form of imprisonment is still the leader in the system of sanctions of the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This figure is 44% of the total number of sanctions, and in 1962 it was 45%. If we take into account the introduction of life imprisonment into the punishment system and the establishment in Part 4 of Art. 56 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation based on the totality of sentences with a maximum term of imprisonment of up to 30 years, it is not possible to talk about the humanization of the current criminal legislation.

However, today the situation is different. Proof of the changing criminal policy towards its humanization are the changes and additions made to the criminal, penal and other legislative acts of the Russian Federation by the Federal Law of March 9, 2001, as well as the implementation of measures provided for in the Concept of reforming the penal system of the Ministry of Justice of Russia to 2005

The foregoing does not mean that in criminal and penal legislation there are no ineffective norms that need to be revised and improved towards their humanization.

One of the important problems requiring scientific understanding and legislative solution is the legal regulation of the execution of punishment in the form of life imprisonment.

Certain norms of the Criminal Code and Penal Code of the Russian Federation regulating the execution of punishment in the form of life imprisonment are subject to justified criticism.

P.G. Ponomarev correctly notes that the real conditions of serving imprisonment in Russian correctional institutions make a term of 25-30 years actually lifelong, since it is impossible to survive for so long under the existing conditions in places of imprisonment.

The purpose of life imprisonment, as well as other types of criminal punishment, is the resocialization of the convicted person. However, such a goal cannot be perceived by the convicted person, since the prospect of his life is inherent in the punishment itself - life imprisonment. With the current legal regulation of this punishment, it is pointless to raise the question of the correction of convicts; at best, one can pose the task of the convict being released mentally and physically healthy, living out his life without causing harm to anyone, and being safe for society.

Today, life imprisonment for those sentenced to this type of punishment is regarded as more cruel than the death penalty.

In many countries, life prisoners are given a minimum number of years and months to serve in prison as a punishment for the crime and as a measure to deter others from committing the crime. This minimum period is often called the "tariff".

Although the length of time spent in prison by lifers varies from country to country, the general characteristic of a life sentence is that it is indeterminate and indefinite. This means that prisoners will remain in prison until they are deemed safe to be released.

A.S. Mikhlin sees an advantage of an indeterminate sentence over a fixed-term sentence in that it allows a person to be kept in prison beyond the minimum term specified in the court's sentence if the offender is still considered a threat to society.

The Russian “tariff” for the maintenance of life-sentenced prisoners is actually the period established in Part 5 of Art. 79 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation stipulates that a person serving life imprisonment may be released on parole if the court finds that he does not need to further serve this sentence and has actually served at least 25 years of imprisonment.

It should be recognized that this “tariff” - 25 years - under the current conditions of detention in isolation is insurmountable for many convicts. Today our legal climate is such that we can assume that the specified tariff will change in the direction of its significant reduction.

Against the backdrop of the complication of the crime situation in Russia, acute social controversy regarding the use or non-use of the death penalty and the possibility of replacing it with life imprisonment, society is particularly interested in the issue of pardoning Russian citizens who have committed particularly serious crimes that encroach on life. According to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (clause “m” of Article 44), life imprisonment is applied precisely to this category of persons, and only as an alternative to the death penalty.

In accordance with Article 50 of the Constitution of Russia, all convicted persons, regardless of the severity of the crime they committed, and persons who have served a court-imposed sentence and have an unexpunged conviction have a subjective right to apply for pardon, in accordance with Article 50 of the Constitution of Russia. This leads to massive requests for pardon, which the Commission on Pardons under the President of the Russian Federation sought to satisfy, which, of course, to a certain extent, blurred the meaning and purpose of the very concept of “pardon institution.” In 2000, the Head of State signed 12.5 thousand pardons.

It is clear that it is practically impossible for one commission, consisting even of highly competent and truly intelligent people, with all their desire, to study and competently prepare such a number of petitions for clemency and the documents attached to them. The existing mechanism for implementing the constitutional powers of the President of the Russian Federation to carry out pardons in the legal literature is regarded as nothing other than the intervention of the Pardon Commission in the prerogatives of the “independence of the judiciary.” The President “carries out pardons” (Article 89 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), but this, as A.D. rightly believes, Boykov, should be a one-time action in exceptional cases, and not be of the nature of a massive review of court decisions.

In the literature, an opinion was expressed about changing the practice of applying pardons and the advisability of expanding the powers of the subjects of the Federation in terms of granting them the right to adopt appropriate regulations on pardoning certain categories of those sentenced to imprisonment for crimes committed through negligence, as well as persons who have committed small intentional crimes for the first time severity and have proven themselves positively in the process of serving their sentence. This would serve, on the one hand, as a significant reduction in the number of applications for pardon to the Commission on Pardons under the President and, on the other hand, as an incentive for those convicted to reform, and most importantly, it would eliminate the possibility of keeping in isolation those who do not pose a danger to society, would suspend the process of adaptation of a significant part of convicts to immoral criminal conditions of life outside society.

It seems that this point of view does not contradict, but, on the contrary, corresponds to the logic of federalism, although pardon is a subject of exclusive federal jurisdiction. Indeed, according to Part 2 of Article 78 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the federal executive bodies of the Russian Federation can transfer to them the exercise of part of their powers, if this does not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation and federal laws. Since the heads of the subjects of the Federation are authorized by the state to govern millions of law-abiding citizens and are responsible for the socio-economic and moral state in their regions, it would be possible to involve the heads of the subjects of the Federation in the implementation of acts of pardon in relation to designated categories of convicts.

Ideas for improving the mechanism for implementing the constitutional powers of the President of the Russian Federation to carry out pardons with the participation of state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are reflected in the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 28, 2001 “On commissions on pardons in the territories of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.” The President decided to abolish the existing Commission on Pardons for the Subjects of the Russian Federation, but retained his constitutional right to pardon.

According to clause 9 of the Regulations on the procedure for considering applications for pardon in the Russian Federation, the highest official of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, no later than 15 days from the date of receipt of the application for pardon and the conclusion of the commission, submits to the President of the Russian Federation a proposal on the advisability of applying an act of pardon in relation to a convicted person or a person serving a court-appointed sentence punishment and having an unexpunged criminal record. Thus, the heads of the constituent entities of the Federation are actually vested with only advisory functions that have virtually no legal significance.

The first steps of the activities of the commission on issues of pardon, as stated by Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation A.I. Pristaavkin, who attended their meetings in the Moscow region, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, inspires optimism. People who were internally ready to fulfill their duty came to the commissions from local public organizations. They worked very seriously, studying each case carefully and impartially. As the press testifies, commissions in the Saratov, Kursk, Ulyanovsk regions and other regions of Russia structure their work in a similar way.

However, in order to thoroughly analyze the activities of regional commissions on issues of pardon from different angles, there is still too little material, although some alarming trends can already be traced. So, for example, in Tatarstan, as noted by A.I. Pristavkin, and at the end of March the commission received cases against 94 people, but only 6 were recommended for pardon. The first decisions of the commission on pardoning the Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk regions, Kamchatka, Yakutia were complete refusals. For every 10-15 people – 1 pardoned. The Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation asks what kind of terrible criminals are these, and cites a typical case.

An eighteen-year-old boy was convicted of robbery and hooliganism. This is his first conviction. He received a sentence of seven and a half years, and has already served exactly half of it. The administration of the correctional institution is characterized positively. Why not give the young man a chance to return to normal life? At the same time, A.I. Pristavkin believes that the pardon commission could show loyalty and mercy and criticized the procedure established by the Russian Ministry of Justice for filing applications for pardon.

The practice of the commissions on issues of pardon has highlighted other inaccuracies, ambiguities and contradictions with the current legislation, which are contained in the text of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 28, 2001 and the Regulations approved by it on the procedure for considering applications for pardon in the Russian Federation.

Taking into account the current realities of our life, the current legislation on pardons and the practice of its implementation both in the regions and in the capital, it still seems important and advisable when finalizing the draft Federal Law “On Pardons” to provide for:

a) delegation by the President of the Russian Federation of his pardon powers to the heads of the constituent entities of the Federation, as is the case in the USA, where pardons are carried out by the state governor;

b) features of the procedure for pardoning minors;

c) the possibility of encouraging members of the Central Commission under the President of the Russian Federation and the Territorial Commission of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation on issues of pardon not only morally, but also financially;

d) responsibility of members of the pardon commission for abuse of the honorary duties assigned to them;

e) exclusion of any possibility of speeding up the process (or guarantee of pardon) for the corresponding benefit.

The exercise by the President of the Russian Federation of the function of pardon is a serious and responsible matter, in which the Territorial Commissions for Pardon have now become involved, and this is no less than more than 1000 people in 89 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

The adoption of the Law “On Pardon” with these and other possible additions, in our opinion, will be an important step in the organizational and legal improvement of the institution of pardon and the formation of civil society in Russia. Everyone is interested in an objective, from the point of view of law and morality, solution to the problem raised here, because every citizen of Russia can pardon and be pardoned.

In these conditions, the state’s criminal policy and, accordingly, the activities of its judicial system should be especially flexible. We are talking primarily about the legal regulation of such an important social problem as the use or non-use of the death penalty. It is necessary to admit that this problem has been hanging in the legal space of the Russian state for a very long time and from its positive solution, perhaps, the country will finally have socially guaranteed security and people’s confidence in their protection from maniacs, murderers, terrorists, rapists, and robbers.

According to the current criminal legislation of Russia, the death penalty can be imposed for the commission of especially serious crimes provided for in Part 2 of Article 105, Art. 275, 295, 317 and 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, in accordance with Art. 57 and 59 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation prohibit the application of the death penalty and life imprisonment to women, minors, as well as to men who have reached 65 years of age at the time of sentencing. In addition, these punishments cannot be imposed in the presence of circumstances provided for in Part 1 of Art. 65 and part 4 of Art. 66 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (assignment of punishment when the jury verdicts on leniency and imposition of punishment for an unfinished crime).

According to Part 2 of Art. 20 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the death penalty, pending its abolition, may be established by federal law as an exceptional measure of punishment for particularly serious crimes against life, providing the accused with the right to have his case considered by a court with the participation of a jury.

Consequently, in Russia the death penalty has not yet been abolished, and its use has been suspended until the establishment of jury trials in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Legal and financial measures for their creation have already been taken.

In connection with its accession to the Council of Europe, Russia signed Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and committed itself to the abolition of the death penalty.

Thus, on the one hand, Russia has pledged to comply with the principles and legal standards of the Council of Europe, and on the other, it must proceed from national sovereignty and give priority to its national interests in the fight against particularly serious violent crime. The growth of especially serious crimes against life, contract killings, the intensification of terrorist groups, explosions and arson leading to the death of tens and even hundreds of people, the enormous property damage caused to the country by such crimes necessitate “the adoption by the state of active legislative measures to ensure the safety of society, including the introduction of the death penalty.” executions for terrorism."

Today, it seems, no sane person will dispute this, because this is a matter of life and death for respectable people, a matter of policy for any civilized state. In the Annual Message of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin to the Federal Assembly on April 3, 2001 notes that “the key issue of any government is the trust of citizens in the state. The degree of this trust is directly determined by how it protects its citizens from the arbitrariness of racketeers, bandits and bribe-takers. However, neither the legislative and executive authorities, nor the courts, nor law enforcement agencies are still working on this.”

Showing quasi-humanity towards murderers, the state does not properly care about the victims of their criminal attacks, relatives and loved ones of the victims.

Practice shows that some convicts, who recently mercilessly killed innocent people, suddenly begin to “see the light” in correctional institutions and ask the President of the Russian Federation to release them. At the same time, as Yu. Shatalov writes, they do not take into account the feelings of the relatives and friends of the murdered, to whom the very right of the murderers to petition for pardon seems to be a monstrous injustice.

It seems that regional pardon commissions should consider all petitions received by them, regardless of the severity of the crime committed. This is the constitutional right of convicted persons, and no one is given the right to deprive them of this right.

The issue of making a decision on pardon, ultimately, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, is the prerogative of the President of the Russian Federation. It is important that the political leadership of the country, the legislator, listen to the opinion of the scientific community, to the voice of their people, which in this case is represented by the regional pardon commissions, that there are crimes without pardon. In other words, the state must actually ensure the constitutional right to life for its citizens and protect them from criminal attacks. The growth of grave and especially grave crimes against life and health requires the application of the death penalty to so-called “scumbags” and other criminal elements, as provided for in the current Criminal Code.

In connection with the increasing occurrence of terrorism and other particularly serious crimes that encroach on life, the recommendations of the Council of Europe on the non-use of the death penalty in Russia must be overcome by our state. There are all moral and legal grounds for this: a) the criminal law of many foreign countries does not exclude the use of the death penalty, as evidenced by the Criminal Code of 120 countries around the world, including the CIS, which provide for the use of the death penalty for ordinary crimes; b) European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms in paragraph 1 of Art. 2 indicates that “every person’s right to life is protected by law. No one may be intentionally deprived of life except in execution of a death sentence passed by a court for committing a crime for which such punishment is provided by law.” Therefore, the Convention also does not exclude the retention of the death penalty in the legislation of any European state, including Russia. This is confirmed by the criminal codes of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, where the death penalty is retained.

The stated circumstances indicate the objective necessity and expediency of the real use of the death penalty in Russia.

V.E. is right Guliyev is that at present the nation, society and the authorities are obliged to adequately resist criminal aggression, and not shed tears over our failure to meet the standards of civilized countries. In relation to serial killers, terrorists of mass destruction, child killers, nacroterrorists - manufacturers and wholesale dealers of narcotic drugs, the death penalty by court is not only permissible, it is necessary. Moreover, with a tenfold double-check of the case materials, the validity of the sentence and the special procedure for its execution. Every year of delay in resolving this emergency issue means many extrajudicial killings, and, most importantly, the conviction of many in the impunity of crimes and in the callousness of the state, its indifference to the greatest value - the lives of its own citizens.

The issue of pardon is closely related to criminal policy and judicial practice of applying the sanction of a criminal law norm, which fulfills its official role if its minimum and maximum limits correspond to the danger of the crime and if it is effectively applied by the courts, taking into account the general principles of sentencing.

Because of this, according to L.A. Prokhorov and M.T. Tashchilina, assessing the effectiveness of a sanction involves taking into account the main aspects. The first is the deterrent potential that was originally built into the sanctions. It must be so strict that it can stop a potential offender from committing a crime. The second aspect is dynamic, this is the life of the sanction, its application in judicial practice, the use of the scope of its repressive impact. Therefore, there are two directions for enhancing the impact of the criminal law instrument in question on crime.

The first direction involves a reasonable increase in the minimum and maximum limits of sanctions for committing crimes that pose the greatest danger to society. The second is related to the rational use of sanction limits by courts when assigning punishment. The complication of the crime situation in the country makes the problem of reasonable application of sanctions urgent. In order to study this problem, these authors studied criminal cases considered in 1998 by jury courts in the Saratov, Ulyanovsk, Rostov regions, Stavropol and Krasnodar territories; sentences for the most dangerous and common types of crimes were analyzed: murder (Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), rape (Part 2 of Article 131 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), encroachment on the life of a law enforcement officer and the use of violence against a government official (Article 131 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). 317, 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), taking a bribe (Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), banditry (Article 209 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

A comparative study of the criminogenic situation and the practice of applying sanctions of the Criminal Code shows that crime in Russia develops on its own: the legislator creates laws, trying to bring them into line with the current criminogenic situation, and judicial practice goes its own way. Therefore, constant coordination of legislative and law enforcement activities is required, taking into account existing realities, the state of crime, and its social danger.

One of the most important areas in this regard is to ensure the adequacy of the use of sanctions in accordance with the nature and degree of public danger of the crime committed. It is necessary to ensure strict influence on persons guilty of committing serious and especially serious crimes, and at the same time the widespread use of milder types of punishment for committing crimes of minor and medium gravity, and in particular careless ones.

However, with such a variation in the application of strict and soft types of punishment, it is necessary in the law to establish reasonable limits for long terms of imprisonment (from 2 to 5 years) and especially long ones (from 5 to 15 years) for especially serious crimes, and in the case of a combination of crimes up to 20 years and with aggregate sentences of up to 25 years.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I would like to note that in this group of psychological and legal problems I analyzed the subject and tasks of correctional psychology, the psychological aspects of the problem of punishment, correction and re-education of convicts, and revealed the psychological content of these concepts. We do not reduce the concept of “penitentiary psychology” to the concept of correctional psychology. I emphasize that the essence of penitentiary activity lies in such an organization of the prison regime, which, in combination with acts of mercy, leads to the convict’s repentance - deep personal self-condemnation, a radical value reorientation of the individual, self-purification - catharsis. In this regard, the psychology of the individual deprived of freedom and socio-psychological phenomena in places of deprivation of liberty were analyzed. Considering the practice of resocializing activities of correctional institutions, I would like to note that there are significant shortcomings of this activity - a violation of the goal-setting mechanisms of convicts, a violation of their socio-psychological connections, the lack of the necessary individualization of the execution of criminal punishment and psychological correction in relation to persons with mental anomalies.

The purpose of criminal punishment is to prevent the offender from causing harm to society again. And this obstacle should be the stronger, the more valuable the violated social benefits and the more intense the individual’s motivation to commit crimes. The proportionality between crime and punishment is that the punishment be effective for a given individual, that it has the greatest impact on the psyche and that it is not so painful for his body. Relying on the educational impact of only punitive measures, on inflicting physical suffering on the perpetrator, and overestimating the significance of the cruelty of the regime, the correctional system does not achieve its goal.

By depriving a person of freedom, he is subjected to such suffering and deprivation that do not legally arise from this type of punishment. Due to the low legal culture, the absence of democratic traditions of forgetting individual rights, the deprivation of a person’s freedom (and only this is sentenced by the court) practically imposes on the convicted person such grave suffering that is not provided for by the court verdict: oppression by unbearable “housing conditions”, extremely poor nutrition, restrictions social communication, a criminalized microenvironment, the nakedness of the intimate side of life, and the hostile attitude of ITU staff. At the same time, such important feelings of shame, conscience, and personal dignity in the structure of resocialization of the convicted person are not only not cultivated, but also completely atrophy. The principle of individualization of punishment declared in penal law and legal doctrine has not yet been embodied in the practice of correctional institutions. Moreover, even theoretically, this principle is not understood as a necessary differentiation in the treatment of convicts in accordance with the characteristics of their behavioral deviation. There is a need for widespread introduction of means and methods of scientifically based individual and group psychotherapy into the penitentiary system.

The thesis discusses the problem of optimizing the terms of imprisonment as an important factor in the resocialization of convicts

The personally threatening environment in most correctional institutions sharply increases the level of anxiety of the majority of prisoners; whereas, according to some researchers, this personal characteristic is one of the main reasons for criminal behavior. The main means of resocialization of convicts are work, education, leisure, and the organization of socially positive intra-group interpersonal interaction. These means of resocialization form the core of the educational regime. However, it is not these means themselves, but their educational and correctional organization that brings success in the resocialization of convicts. Labor, which is a heavy duty, cannot in itself have a positive impact on the individual. Modern mechanized and automated labor is designed to ensure self-realization of the individual. Work in an ITU is a means of social integration and a means of social control, a means of self-actualization of the individual. The labor qualifications of the convicted person must be organically connected with the formation of the corresponding educational needs in him.

Free time and leisure time for convicts is a criminogenically dangerous time in the life of convicts. Here the greatest activity of educational influences is necessary. Effectively organized leisure time for convicts is designed to destroy the monotony of prison life, relieve feelings of melancholy and loneliness and, ultimately, social alienation of the individual. Restrictions in the sphere of goal setting, personal activity (the companions of the state prison regime, which are so dangerous for the resocialization of convicts) in the sphere of leisure should be kept to a minimum. Leisure, full of interesting activities and useful entertainment, is a powerful means of physical restoration and mental self-renewal of the individual. To drive people into a barracks as if into a stall and deprive them of the basic capabilities of human life means dooming them to inevitable degradation. Only totalitarian regimes rely on such a means of “educational” influence. Blocking any contacts with the outside world is another erroneous position in the re-socializing activities of ITU. Lost social connections can be restored only if they are actively functioning.

Execution of criminal punishment is not the transformation of a convicted person into an object of violence, but the process of returning a socially deformed personality to socially adapted life activities. The entire ITU regime should be saturated with elements of socially adaptive training. Solving this problem requires combining the efforts of lawyers, sociologists, psychologists, teachers, psychotherapists and psychiatrists. The above-mentioned problems of penitentiary psychology are widely discussed by us in a number of works (4,16,18,25,28,35). Along with critical analysis, we also highlight the positive experiences of individual correctional labor institutions.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

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2. Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. 1996

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11. Duyunov V.K. Problems of criminal punishment in theory, legislation and judicial practice. Kursk, 2000.

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17. Mikhlin A.S. What is life imprisonment? // Russian justice. 2002. No. 4.

18. The beds are made softer. New amendments to the Criminal Code are designed to soften the punishment system // Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 2003. 22 Oct.

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30. Khokhryakov G.F. Social environment, personality and legal consciousness of convicts: Abstract of thesis... Doctor of Legal Sciences. M., 1987.

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32. The effectiveness of criminal legal measures to combat crime. M., 1968.

33. Legal encyclopedic dictionary. M„ 1984. P. 135.

Struchkov N. A. Course of corrective labor law. Problems of the general part. M., 2000. P. 29.

Legal encyclopedic dictionary. M„ 1984. P. 135.

Penitentiary (from the Latin “poenitentiarius” - repentant) - corrected through repentance, internal self-purification.

Khokhryakov G. F. Paradoxes of prison. M., 2001.

See: The effectiveness of criminal legal measures to combat crime. M., 1968. P.64-66.

See: Zubkov A.I. On the issue of the need to change punitive policy in modern conditions of Russian development // Development of the theory of punishment in criminal and penal law / Ed. V.I. Seliverstova. M., 2000. pp. 47-48.

See: Brilliantov A.V. On the system of criminal penalties // Development of the theory of punishment in criminal and penal law: materials of a scientific and practical seminar / Ed. IN AND. Seliverstova. M., 2000. P. 90.

See: Artamonov V.P. On the need for further development of penitentiary reform. M., 2000. P.64.

See: Boykov A.D. In memory of a colleague and friend // Development of the theory of punishment in criminal and penal law / Ed. IN AND. Seliverstova. M., 2000. P.63.

See: Rybak M.S. On the issue of political and socio-economic rights of citizens deprived of liberty // Human rights: ways of their implementation. Materials of the international scientific and practical conference (October 8-10, 1998). Saratov, 1999. Part 1. P.152-153.

See: SZ RF.2001. No. 53 Part II. Art. 5149.

Agamov G.D., Dyachenko A.P. The death penalty in Russian legislation // Development of the theory of punishment in criminal and criminal correctional law / Ed. IN AND. Seliverstova. M., 2000. P.74.

The author proposes to refer the issue of pardoning those convicted of committing grave and especially grave crimes to the exclusive competence of the President of the Russian Federation.

See: Agamov G.D., Dyachenko A.P. Op. op. P.75.

European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concluded in Rome on November 4. 1950. // Northwestern Russian Federation. 2001. No. 2. Art. 163.

See: Guliyev V. The right to live and the right to kill. In Russia, the death penalty for deliberate murderers and terrorists is a condition for the necessary self-defense of society // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 2002. June 27.

See: Stanovsky M.N. Assignment of punishment. St. Petersburg, 1999; Duyunov V.K. Problems of criminal punishment in theory, legislation and judicial practice. Kursk, 2000.

See: Prokhorov L., Tashchilin M. Assignment of punishment and the Russian criminal situation // Russian justice. 1999. No. 8. P.37-38.

The concept that is covered by the word “socialization” includes the process of connecting with society. The whole essence of this phenomenon lies in the individual’s assimilation of values, roles and norms that are approved by the majority of people. The concept of “socialization” is opposed by two others. Their names are formed by adding prefixes. These are “desocialization” and “resocialization”. The first of these means processes in which a person internalizes antisocial and antisocial values and norms. At the same time, a person acquires negative attitudes and behavioral stereotypes. This leads to destabilization and deformation of public relations.

Mechanism of desocialization

Why does a person choose an antisocial path? At the initial stage, this happens unconsciously. Children and adolescents adopt the behavior patterns of those adults who lead an antisocial lifestyle. In doing so, they satisfy their desire to gain approval from this negative microenvironment. Moreover, in their opinion, this way they become adults faster. In this case, the negative microenvironment exercises social control over the individual. In this case, adolescents or children receive praise, approval and support if they have taken the path of antisocial behavior. Hard work, mercy and kindness in such an environment are simply ridiculed.

The entire process of desocialization sometimes occurs spontaneously. However, in some cases it is carried out purposefully. An example of this is instilling criminal behavior in adolescents to involve them in illegal activities. In this case, the mechanism of punishment and rewards is widely used.

Correction path

Resocialization is applied to an individual who has embarked on an antisocial path of behavior by various government controls. This concept means a certain type of change that occurs in a person, which allows him to adopt a type of behavior that is radically different from the previous one. In this case, the prefix “re-” means the destruction and dismantling of negative values and norms that have been internalized by the individual. During this process, a person accepts those positive concepts that are approved by society.

Use of the term

The concept of “resocialization” is quite widely used not only by representatives of social psychology and sociology. This term is also mentioned by lawyers and teachers. It concerns social measures that are applied by society to people who have taken the criminal path.

In pedagogy, resocialization is the assimilation of new skills and values, which should replace the old ones that are outdated or insufficiently acquired. This entire process is directed at individuals who have different types of goals. The goal pursued by resocialization is the restoration of lost social status, as well as the reorientation of negative attitudes. The solution to this problem lies in the positive attitude of the pedagogically oriented environment towards the individual.

“Resocialization of convicts” is a term used by lawyers when solving problems of penal policy. It applies to young people. It is noted that young subjects have a higher ability to resocialize than representatives of the older generation. For young people, this term may not mean the process itself, but its result.

Who carries out resocialization?

The entry of an individual onto the path of antisocial development is recorded by institutions that exercise social control. At the same time, they can also take appropriate resocialization measures. This process involves educational, military and labor groups, schools and families, public organizations, as well as law enforcement agencies represented by their preventive structures. Often, the resocialization of an individual is carried out without imprisonment. However, if a person commits a socially dangerous act, more stringent measures may be taken against him. In this case, by a court verdict, he is sent to prison. At the same time, resocialization is a certain stage designed to restore the socially useful ties of the individual with society. During this process, asocial roles and behavior must be destroyed, and positive models must be consolidated. The special institutions that carry out the resocialization process in this case are the following:

Educational labor colonies where minors are kept;

Correctional labor colonies;

The main task that the data are designed to solve is the correction of convicts, that is, resocialization.

The severity of the problem

The topic of resocialization is associated not only with those who have committed criminal acts. It also applies to other categories of people. Thus, the resocialization of drug addicts, patients, as well as those who have experienced stress during natural disasters, military operations or accidents is of great importance for society.

Such people need not only psychotherapy, psychocorrection (auto-training, etc.) to carry out the normal process of resocialization. Social adaptation of such people should not be expected unless the emotional tension of the individual is relieved.

Resocialization work

Social rehabilitation in Western European countries is carried out by relief societies and various foundations, the Salvation Army, the Church, etc. Similar work in Russia is carried out by rehabilitation centers. In this regard, there is a need for accelerated development that would be focused on the needs of this social practice.

It is worth saying that the need for social adaptation exists for almost every person. Moreover, positive results appear only when emotional stress is relieved.

Conclusion

There are certain life cycles in a person's biography. These are periods that separate important milestones from each other. In each new cycle, social roles change and a new status is acquired. Often life stages are characterized by a rejection of the previous environment and habits, friendly contacts, and changes in the usual routine. When moving to a new step, a person enters a new cycle. At the same time, he has to constantly retrain. This process is divided into two stages, which have special names. When a person is weaned from previous norms, values, rules of behavior and roles, they speak of desocialization of the individual. The next stage is learning. It allows you to acquire new roles, rules of behavior and values to replace the old ones. This process is called resocialization, which can be so deep that it leads to radical changes in lifestyle.

An example of this is a Russian emigrant who, having arrived in America, finds himself in a completely new, diverse and rich culture. The individual has to abandon old norms and traditions, which happens under the influence of new life experiences.