Temporal Observations of the Scope and Structure of Crime

Abstract

Because of updating the methodological foundations of Russian criminological science, an epistemological potential of the historical method can be revived. Within the framework of historical criminology, crime is understood not as a fixed number of crimes committed in a certain period of time, but as a social process observed during this time period. At the same time, the historical method is important not only for understanding the dynamics of crime as a whole. It can also be used to correct and clarify existing ideas about its internal characteristics. In particular, the use of the historical method to study traditional quantitative indicators of crime — scope and structure — gives researchers new opportunities. Under this approach, the actual scope of crime should be determined by the present (crimes that have been committed and identified at the moment), the past that must be remembered (latent crimes), and the past that must be forgotten (expired and decriminalized acts). The structure of crime in its historical analysis appears as a combination of independently changing «stable» and «variable» parts of crime. The point of connection of the past and the future in the scope and structure of crime represent criminogenic properties of crime social consequences, revealing themselves in the mechanism of its self-determination. At the same time, the historical cross-section of this mechanism includes a deterministic effect of consequences of past crimes and the fear of future crime. The data on the state, structure and consequences of crime, clarified through historical analysis, can not only correct the prevailing theoretical ideas about crime’s danger, but also makes a significant contribution into our ideas about the real scope of preventive and law enforcement activities.