The practice of imposing punishment for especially grave crimes against life in the Russian Federation: status and trends

The aim of the article is to assess the severity of criminal repression at the level of imposition of punishment with regard to especially grave crimes against life, as well as to identify trends in this area. The empirical basis of the study was data of statistical reports of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the penalties imposed on persons convicted in the Russian Federation under Part 1 and Part 2 of Article 105 of the RF Criminal Code in 2010-2017. The statistical method was used in the analysis. According to the results of the study, the author made the following conclusions: 1. The practice of punishing murder without aggravating circumstances is characterized by the leniency of the designated amounts of punishment. This is manifested in the relatively common use of suspended sentence rather than deprivation of liberty (in some years up to 1.8 % of the total number of convicted persons), as well as in the imposition of penalties in the form of real imprisonment in the lower segment of the sanction and frequently below its minimum limit - 6 years (until 2015, more than half of the convicted persons were persons who were sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 8 years). 2. Punitive practice in terms of sentencing for aggravated murder can not be assessed unambiguously. The imposition of punishment at the level of the minimum limit of the sanction and below it is considerably widespread (in each year of the studied period, the percentage of persons convicted to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 8 years did not fall below 12 % in the total number of persons sentenced to this type of punishment. At the same time, the percentage of persons who were sentenced to particularly long terms of imprisonment (more than 15 years) is high: the lowest value is 25.9 % (2011), the highest value is 29.53 % (2016). 3. In 2010-2017, a trend towards tougher punishment for murder without aggravating circumstances was formed: (a) the percentage of suspended sentence rather than deprivation of liberty reduced drastically; (b) the proportion of persons sentenced to more than 10 years increased significantly among those convicted to real deprivation of liberty (7.4 5% in 2011, 12.54 % in 2017), while the proportion of persons sentenced to imprisonment for more than 3 to 8 years reduced significantly; (c) the percentage of persons to whom additional punishment in the form of restriction of liberty is applied increased significantly (2.72 % of the total number of persons convicted to deprivation of liberty in 2011, 7.99 % in 2017). 4. The dynamics of indicators characterizing the sentencing for aggravated murder in 2010-2017 reflects contradictory trends. The use of suspended sentence was reduced to isolated cases. The percentage of persons sentenced to life imprisonment (the highest value is 3.66 % (2016), the lowest value is 2.26 % (2010)), as well as persons sentenced to particularly long terms of imprisonment (more than 15 years) is relatively stable. However, some easing of criminal repression is observed, as there is an increase in the percentage of prisoners sentenced to imprisonment for more than 8 to 10 years inclusive by reducing the percentage of prisoners sentenced to imprisonment for more than 10 to 15 years inclusive.

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