Accounting for the categorization of crimes in the construction of the system of punishment

The paper considers the categorization of crimes, its impact on the criminal law standards that regulate the system of penalties. Some disadvantages of the existing system of punishment, its gaps, elements that do not ensure effective implementation of the purposes of the system are described. Shortcomings of the categorization fixed in the current criminal legislation are given. The author proposes a new approach to the construction of standards in Article 15 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Categories of Crime") by making crimes categorization tripartite depending on the type of sanctions applied, and by including all types of criminal penalties fixed in Article 44 of the Criminal Code of the RF, not only imprisonment. In the author's opinion, when categorizing the legislator unreasonably prefers imprisonment as a criterion of division. This preference is due to the long tradition of the law enforcer in sentencing, the availability of imprisonment in most of the sanctions of provisions of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the RF, the virtually unchanged content of this form of punishment, and other reasons. Meanwhile, the very sign of "blameworthiness" of the crime is not limited to imprisonment. The proposed system will avoid "distortions" in assessing the gravity of crimes by various types of punishment. It will diverge from a popular, but false, opinion, according to which the basic principles of the system of penalties is the location of punishment in Article 44 of the Criminal Code of the RF from less to more repressive; it will assess the danger of an offense to the public in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the RF by indicating the category of the crime. It will facilitate solving a number of problems connected with cases of substitution of punishment, criminal law retroactivity application; it will help standardize assessment of the danger of criminal acts and simplify solution of other problems. The author notes that some types of punishment, other than imprisonment, are partially "attributed" to crime categories in the current legislation in relation to death penalty, life imprisonment, arrest, forced labor, compulsory labor, deprivation of special, military or honorary title, class rank, or State awards, and fines.

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