Community sanctions in the Russian criminal law

Objective: to develop scientifically sound provisions on community sanctions in the Russian criminal law; to develop proposals for the inclusion in criminal and criminal procedure laws of norms on conditional release from criminal liability and on termination of criminal prosecution due to transferring a person on bail to an organization or institution staff.

Methods: a dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, which allows analyzing their development and functioning, as well as applying general scientific (analysis, deduction, induction, logical method, generalization, synthesis, extrapolation) and special (questioning, historical-legal, comparative, statistical, and formal-legal) research methods.

Results: the author determined the place of community sanctions in the Russian criminal law and substantiated the proposal to supplement criminal and criminal-procedural legislation with norms on conditional release from criminal liability and on termination of criminal prosecution due to transferring a person on bail to an organization or institution staff. The normative basis for release from criminal liability is constructed from the objective conditions under which a person is subject to preliminary release. The final release is conditional on the accused’s compliance with the probation conditions. The normative basis for the termination of criminal prosecution is composed of objective and subjective conditions. Moreover, the proposed criminal-procedural norm contains instructions to the court: a) the territorial body of internal affairs and the guarantor should monitor compliance with the probation and training conditions, submitting a report on the subject’s fulfillment of duties, b) the exemption from criminal liability should be canceled, the pledge should be sent to the state revenue and the bailed person should be subject to punishment in case of systematic or malicious non-fulfillment of these duties.

Scientific novelty: the article proves the need to consolidate community sanctions in the Russian criminal law. It argues that the criminal and criminal-procedural laws should stipulate norms on conditional release from criminal liability, termination of criminal prosecution due to transferring a person on bail to an organization or institution staff. The author discloses the grounds and conditions for this release/termination, as well as other circumstances aimed at the effective application of these standards. In addition, the article shows legal prospects of collateral surety as a community sanction for a criminal.

Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions set out in the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical, and law-making activities to study and improve the institutions for exemption from criminal liability and termination of criminal prosecution.

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