Stages of contemporary criminal policy development

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction. The peculiarities of contemporary Russian criminal policy can be adequately understood only in the general context of the processes of its genesis and development. Meanwhile, the issue of chronological limits of contemporary criminal policy and its internal periodisation is still an issue of scientific interest. Methods. Based on the ideas about the dialectical relationship between politics and law, attempts to examine the dynamics of contemporary criminal policy based only on the evolution of the criminal law are critically analysed. On the one hand, it is necessary, to provide a link between the stages of policy and specific forms of its implementation (primarily criminal law), and on the other hand, to justify an independent criteria determining the substantial evolution of criminal policy. It is reasonable to recognise the content of strategic documents in the sphere of ensuring national security. Using the logical-legal, critical-legal method and content analysis, the article presents the authors’ version of the chronology of contemporary criminal policy of Russia. Results. It is proved that contemporary criminal policy, having begun to form in 1991 and developed within the logic of overcoming the shortcomings and contradictions of the previous criminal policy, is not a single substantive and chronological continuum. Since 2009, criminal policy has obtained qualitatively new elements, the set of which makes it possible to recognise that since that moment a new stage of modern criminal policy has emerged. At the same time, the criminal-political changes are characterised as deep and transformational, making it possible to suggest the formation and development of a new criminal policy.