Exactly 55 years ago, on February 10, 1962, on the bridge separating the FRG and the GDR, the exchange of the Soviet illegal intelligence officer Rudolf Abel (real name William Genrikhovich Fisher) took place for the American pilot Francis Powers shot down over the USSR. Abel behaved courageously in custody: he did not disclose to the enemy even the smallest episode of his work, and he is still remembered and respected not only in our country, but also in the United States.
Shield and sword of the legendary scout
Released in 2015, Steven Spielberg's film "Bridge of Spies", which told about the fate of the Soviet intelligence officer and his exchange, was recognized by film critics as one of the best in the work of the famous American director. The tape was made in the spirit of deep respect for the Soviet intelligence officer. Abel, played by British actor Mark Rylance, is strong-willed in the film, while Powers is a coward.
In Russia, the intelligence colonel was also immortalized on film. He was played by Yuri Belyaev in the 2010 film "Fights: the US government against Rudolf Abel", partly about his fate tells the cult picture of the 60s "Dead Season" by Savva Kulish, at the beginning of which the legendary intelligence officer himself addressed the audience from the screen with a little comment .
He also worked as a consultant on another famous Soviet spy film - "Shield and Sword" by Vladimir Basov, where the main character, played by Stanislav Lyubshin, was called Alexander Belov (A. Belov - in honor of Abel). Who is he, a man who is known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
Artist, engineer or scientist
William Genrikhovich Fisher was a very talented and versatile person with a phenomenal memory and a very developed instinct, which helped him find the right solution in the most unexpected situations.
Since childhood, he, who was born in the small English town of Newcastle upon Tyne, spoke several languages, played various musical instruments, perfectly drew, drew, understood technology and was interested in the natural sciences. An excellent musician, engineer, scientist or artist could have come out of him, but fate itself predetermined his future path even before birth.
More precisely, the father, Heinrich Matthaus Fischer, a German citizen who was born on April 9, 1871 on the estate of Prince Kurakin in the Yaroslavl province, where his parent worked as a manager. In his youth, after meeting the revolutionary Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, Heinrich became seriously interested in Marxism and became an active participant in the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" created by Vladimir Ulyanov.
Named after Shakespeare
Fischer was soon noticed by the Okhrana, followed by an arrest and a long-term exile - first to the north of the Arkhangelsk province, then transfer to the Saratov province. Under these conditions, the young revolutionary proved to be an outstanding conspirator. Constantly changing names and addresses, he continued to wage illegal struggle.
In Saratov, Heinrich met a young like-minded woman, a native of this province, Lyubov Vasilievna Korneeva, who received three years for her revolutionary activities. They soon married and left Russia together in August 1901, when Fischer was presented with a choice: immediate arrest and deportation in shackles to Germany, or voluntary departure from the country.
The young couple settled in Great Britain, where on July 11, 1903 their youngest son was born, who received his name in honor of Shakespeare. Young William passed the exams at the University of London, but he did not have to study there - his father decided to return to Russia, where the revolution had taken place. In 1920, the family moved to the RSFSR, obtaining Soviet citizenship and retaining British citizenship.
The best of the best radio operators
William Fisher entered the VKhUTEMAS (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops), one of the then leading art universities in the country, but in 1925 he was drafted into the army and became one of the best radio operators in the Moscow Military District. His superiority was also recognized by his colleagues, among whom were the future member of the first Soviet drifting station "North Pole-1", the famous polar explorer-radio operator Ernst Krenkel and the future People's Artist of the USSR, artistic director of the Maly Theater Mikhail Tsarev.
© AP Photo
After demobilization, Fisher seems to have found his calling - he worked as a radio engineer at the Research Institute of the Red Army Air Force (now the Valery Chkalov State Flight Test Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation). In 1927 he married Elena Lebedeva, a harpist, and two years later they had a daughter, Evelina.
It was at this time that political intelligence, the OGPU, drew attention to a promising young man with an excellent knowledge of several foreign languages. Since 1927, William has been an employee of the Foreign Department of Foreign Intelligence, where he worked first as an interpreter and then as a radio operator.
Dismissal due to suspicion
In the early 1930s, he asked the British authorities to issue him a passport, since he had quarreled with his revolutionary father and wanted to return to England with his family. The British willingly gave Fisher documents, after which the intelligence officer worked illegally for several years in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and France, where he created a secret radio network, transmitting messages from local residencies to Moscow.
In 1938, fleeing large-scale repressions in the Soviet intelligence apparatus, Alexander Orlov, a resident of the NKVD in Republican Spain, fled to the West.
After this incident, William Fisher was recalled to the USSR and at the end of the same year he was dismissed from the bodies with the rank of lieutenant of state security (corresponding to the rank of army captain).
Such a change in attitude towards a completely successful intelligence officer was dictated only by the fact that the new head of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Lavrenty Beria, frankly did not trust the employees who worked with the previously repressed "enemies of the people" in the NKVD. Fischer was still very lucky: many of his colleagues were shot or imprisoned.
Friendship with Rudolf Abel
Fischer was returned to service by the war with Germany. Since September 1941, he worked in the central intelligence apparatus in the Lubyanka. As head of the communications department, he took part in ensuring the security of the parade, which took place on November 7, 1941 on Red Square. He was engaged in the preparation and transfer of Soviet agents to the Nazi rear, led the work of partisan detachments and participated in several successful radio games against German intelligence.
It was during this period that he became friends with Rudolf Ivanovich (Johannovich) Abel. Unlike Fischer, this active and cheerful Latvian came to reconnaissance from the fleet, in which he fought back in the civil war. During the war, they lived with their families in the same apartment in the center of Moscow.
They were brought together not only by a common service, but also by common features of their biography. For example, like Fischer, in 1938 Abel was dismissed from the service. His older brother Voldemar was accused of participating in a Latvian nationalist organization and shot. Rudolf, like William, was in demand with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, performing responsible tasks for organizing sabotage in the rear of the German troops.
And in 1955, Abel died suddenly, never knowing that his best friend was sent to work illegally in the United States. The Cold War was in full swing.
The enemy's nuclear secrets were required. Under these conditions, William Fisher, who under the guise of a Lithuanian refugee managed to organize two large intelligence networks in the United States, turned out to be an invaluable person for Soviet scientists. For which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
Failure and paint
The amount of interesting information was so great that over time, Fisher needed another radio operator. Moscow sent him Major Nikolai Ivanov as an assistant. It was a personnel error. Ivanov, who worked under the undercover name of Reino Heihanen, turned out to be a drunkard and a lover of women. When in 1957 they decided to recall him back, he turned to the US intelligence services.
Fisher was warned about the betrayal and began to prepare to flee the country through Mexico, but he himself recklessly decided to return to the apartment and destroy all evidence of his work. The FBI agents arrested him. But even at such a stressful moment, William Genrikhovich was able to maintain amazing composure.
He, who continued to paint in the United States, asked the American counterintelligence officers to wipe the paint off the palette. Then he quietly threw a crumpled piece of paper with a cipher telegram into the toilet and flushed it. During the arrest, he called himself Rudolf Abel, thereby making it clear to the Center that he was not a traitor.
Under a false name
During the investigation, Fisher resolutely denied any involvement in Soviet intelligence, refused to testify at the trial, and stopped all attempts by American intelligence officers to work for them. They got nothing out of him, not even his real name.
But Ivanov's testimony and letters from his beloved wife and daughter became the basis for a harsh sentence - more than 30 years in prison. In conclusion, Fischer-Abel painted oil paintings and worked on solving mathematical problems. A few years later, the traitor was punished - a huge truck crashed into a car on a night highway, driven by Ivanov.
The fate of the intelligence officer began to change on May 1, 1960, when the pilot of the U-2 spy plane Francis Powers was shot down in the USSR. In addition, newly elected President John F. Kennedy sought to ease tensions between the US and the USSR.
As a result, it was decided to exchange the mysterious Soviet intelligence officer for three people at once. On February 10, 1962, at the Glienik Bridge, Fischer was handed over to the Soviet secret services in exchange for Powers. Also released were two American students previously arrested on charges of espionage, Frederick Pryor and Marvin Makinen.
FBI director Edgar Hoover once gave a kind of characterization of his professional qualities: “The persistent hunt for master spy Abel is one of the most remarkable cases in our asset ...” And the long-term head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, added one more touch to this portrait, writing in his book “The Art of Intelligence”: “Everything that Abel did, he did out of conviction, and not for money. I would like us to have three or four people like Abel in Moscow.”
His biography is a ready-made script not even for a feature film, but for an exciting serial saga. And even though something has already formed the basis of individual film works, you can’t see in every picture what this person really went through, what he experienced. He himself is a slice of history, its living embodiment. A visible example of worthy service to his cause and devotion to the country for which he took a mortal risk
Don't think about the seconds
Rudolf Ivanovich Abel (real name - William Genrikhovich Fisher) was born on July 11, 1903 in the small town of Newcastle-on-Tyne in England, into a family of Russian political emigrants. His father, a native of the Yaroslavl province, was from a family of Russified Germans, actively participated in revolutionary activities and was sent abroad as "unreliable." In England, he and his chosen one, the Russian girl Lyuba, had a son, who was named William - in honor of Shakespeare. My father was well versed in the natural sciences, knew three languages. This love was passed on to Willy. At the age of 16, he successfully passed the exam at the University of London, but the family at that time decided to return to Moscow.
Here William works as an interpreter in the department of international relations of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies. There was also military service on conscription - its future intelligence officer was in the radiotelegraph regiment of the Moscow Military District, as well as work at the Research Institute of the Air Force of the Red Army. In 1927, William Fisher was hired by the foreign department of the OGPU for the position of assistant commissioner. He performed tasks in the line of illegal intelligence in Europe, including acting as a station radio operator. Upon his return to Moscow, he received the rank of lieutenant of state security, but after some time he was unexpectedly dismissed from intelligence. It is believed that this was Beria's personal decision: he did not trust the cadres who worked with the "enemies of the people", and Fischer managed to work for some time abroad with the defector Alexander Orlov.
William got a job at the All-Union Chamber of Commerce, later worked at an aircraft manufacturing plant, but at the same time bombarded the former "office" with reports of reinstatement. His request was granted in the fall of 1941, when there was a need for experienced, proven specialists. Fischer was enrolled in a unit that organized sabotage groups and partisan detachments behind enemy lines, in particular, he trained radio operators to be thrown behind the front line. During that period, he became friends with fellow worker Abel, whose name would later be called upon arrest.
After the war, William Fisher was sent to the United States, where, living on different passports, he organized his own photo studio in New York, which played the role of an effective cover. It was from here that he led the extensive intelligence network of the USSR in America. In the late 1940s, he worked with the famous spies, the Cohens. This activity was extremely effective - the country received important documents and information, including on missile weapons. However, in 1957, the intelligence officer was in the hands of the CIA. A traitor wound up in his entourage - it was the radio operator Heihanen (pseudonym "Vik"), who, fearing punishment from his superiors for drunkenness and embezzlement of official funds, transmitted information about the intelligence network to the American special services. When the arrest took place, Fischer introduced himself as Rudolf Abel, and it was under this name that he went down in history. Despite the fact that he did not admit his guilt, the court sentenced him to 32 years in prison. The intelligence officer also rejected persistent attempts by US intelligence officers to persuade him to cooperate. In 1962, Abel was exchanged for the pilot of the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, Francis Powers, shot down two years earlier in the sky over the Urals.
After rest and treatment, William Fisher - Rudolf Abel returned to work in the central apparatus of Soviet intelligence. He took part in the training of young specialists who were to go to the "front line" of foreign intelligence. The famous intelligence officer died on November 15, 1971. The website of the Foreign Intelligence Service notes that “Colonel V. Fisher was awarded the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, Orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Red Star, many medals, as well as many medals for outstanding services in ensuring the state security of our country. badge "Honorary State Security Officer".
They whistle like bullets at the temple
The name of Abel-Fischer is known to the general public, by and large, only from the final episode of his work in America and the subsequent exchange for a downed US pilot. Meanwhile, there were many bright pages in his biography, including those about which not everyone and not everyone knows. Special services historian, journalist and writer Nikolai Dolgopolov in his book "Legendary Scouts" dwelled on only some facts from the life of the legendary intelligence officer. But they also reveal him as a real hero. It turns out that it was Fischer who conducted the radio game on behalf of the captured German Lieutenant Colonel Schorhorn.
“According to the legend, thrown to the Germans by the department of Pavel Sudoplatov, a large Wehrmacht unit operated in the Belarusian forests, miraculously escaping capture. It allegedly attacks regular Soviet units, simultaneously informing Berlin about the movement of enemy troops, writes Nikolai Dolgopolov. - In Germany, they believed this, especially since a small group of Germans wandering in the forests really maintained regular contact with Berlin. It was William Fisher, dressed in the uniform of a fascist officer, who played this game with his radio operators.
The Germans were fooled in this way for almost a year. For this operation and for his work during the war in general, William Fisher was awarded the Order of Lenin. The military order - the Red Star - he received in the very first years of his work in the United States. Then not only from New York, where he lived lean (by the way, he allegedly settled in mockery at 252 Fulton Street - close to the FBI office), but also from the coast came radio messages about the movements of military equipment, information regarding the operational situation in major American port cities, delivery, transportation of military cargo from the Pacific coast areas. Fisher also led a network of Soviet "atomic agents" - this, as the same Nikolai Dolgopolov notes, "was his first and most important task." In general, "Mark" - Fisher had such a pseudonym in the USA, managed to quickly reorganize the illegal network that remained in the USA after the Second World War. The fact is that in 1948, Soviet intelligence suffered losses here: even before Fischer arrived, many Soviet agents were arrested because of treachery, our consulates and official representations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco were closed.
“Nine years of work, each of which counts for an illegal immigrant for two, several orders, promotion in rank. The colonel did not have time to do even more, although he created all the conditions for successful work - his own and agents, - Nikolai Dolgopolov notes. “The traitor Heihanen interfered.”
When arrested, Fisher showed fantastic self-control and composure. When the FBI called him a colonel, he immediately realized that the traitor was "Vic": only the radio operator knew what officer rank "Mark" had. Our intelligence officer also behaved courageously at the trial: his lawyer James Donovan later recalled with what admiration he watched his client. But the sentence for a 54-year-old man looked almost like a death sentence - 32 years in prison ... By the way, in Steven Spielberg's recent film "Bridge of Spies", the British actor Mark Rylance skillfully portrayed the image of the Soviet intelligence officer, showing the character of his hero without the usual Hollywood clichés and the current anti-Russian hysteria . The role was so successful that the artist even won an Oscar for her performance. It is worth noting that Rudolf Abel himself took part in the creation of the feature film Dead Season, which was released in 1968. The plot of the tape, in which the main role was played by Donatas Banionis, turned out to be connected with some facts from the biography of the scout.
To whom is infamy, and to whom is immortality
In his memoirs, set out in the book Notes of the Head of Illegal Intelligence, the former head of department “C” (illegals) of the First Main Directorate of the KGBSSSR, Major General Yuri Drozdov, spoke about some of the details of the exchange of Rudolf Abel for the American pilot Powers. In this operation, the security officer played the role of Abel's "cousin" - a petty employee of Drivs, who lived in the GDR.
“The painstaking work was carried out by a large group of employees of the Center. In Berlin, besides me, the leadership of the department also dealt with these issues, ”writes General Drozdov. - A relative of Drivs was “made”, correspondence was established between Abel's family members and his lawyer in the USA, Donovan, through a lawyer in East Berlin. At first, things progressed sluggishly. The Americans were very careful, they started checking the addresses of a relative and a lawyer. Apparently, they felt insecure. In any case, this was evidenced by the data that came to us from their office in West Berlin, and observation of the actions of their agents on the territory of the GDR.
On the eve of the exchange, as Yuri Drozdov recalled, the last meeting was held with the head of the Office of the authorized KGB of the USSR in the GDR, General A. A. Krokhin. “Woke up early in the morning to a knock on the door. The car was already waiting for me downstairs. He arrived at the exchange place sleepy. But the exchange went well - R.I. Abel returned home.
By the way, Yuri Ivanovich remembered such a detail - Powers was handed over to the Americans in a good coat, a winter fawn hat, physically strong, healthy. Abel, on the other hand, crossed the exchange line in some kind of gray-green prison robe and a small cap that could hardly fit on his head. “On the same day, we spent a couple of hours with him buying the necessary wardrobe for him in Berlin stores,” General Drozdov recalled. - Once again I met him at the end of the 60s, in the dining room of our building on Lubyanka, during my visit to the Center from China. He recognized me, approached me, thanked me, said that we still need to talk. I couldn't because I was flying out that same evening. Fate decreed that I visited Abel's dacha only in 1972, but already on the anniversary of his death.
The former deputy head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, Lieutenant-General Vadim Kirpichenko, in one of his interviews, emphasized that only the most famous episodes of Abel's work have been named in open sources so far.
“The paradox is that many other, very interesting fragments are still in the shadows,” the general noted. - Yes, secrecy has already been removed from many cases. But there are stories that, against the background of already known information, look routine, discreet, and journalists, of course, are looking for something more interesting. And some things are hard to restore. The chronicler did not follow Abel! Today, documentary evidence of his work is scattered across many archival folders. Bringing them together, reconstructing events is a painstaking, long work, who can get their hands on it? But when there are no facts, legends appear ... "
Perhaps Rudolf Abel himself will forever remain the same legendary man. A real scout, patriot, officer.
Criminology literally means the doctrine (logos) of crime (crimen).Criminology is an independent social and legal science. Its subject includes, firstly, crime, its essence, patterns and forms of manifestation. At the same time, the concept of crime covers the totality of crimes considered in the form of real factors of social reality, and not legal structures such as, for example, corpus delicti.
Secondly, criminology studies the origin, origins of crime, its causes, conditions and other determinants. At the same time, determinants of crime, different in their sources, content, mechanism of action, are studied in relation to: a) the totality of crimes; b) to their individual types (groups, categories); c) to individual acts of criminal behavior.
Thirdly, the subject of criminology includes the identity of the offender. The identification of the personality of a criminal from the whole mass of people is carried out on the basis of two main criteria: legal (persons who have committed criminal acts) and social, or socio-psychological (persons occupying certain social positions, statuses that have a set of demographic, moral, psychological and other qualities, including anti-social orientation or orientation). The focus of criminology on preventive, proactive approaches to solving the problems of combating crime necessitates the study of this science and those individuals who have not yet violated the criminal law, but due to antisocial views and
habits, one way or another manifested outside, for example, in the form of the commission of relevant administrative offenses, can embark on a criminal path.
Finally, fourthly, criminology studies the problem of crime prevention - a specific area of social regulation, management and control, which has a multi-level character and aims to combat crime primarily by identifying and eliminating its causes, conditions, and other determinants.
The considered elements of the subject of criminology are studied not only by this science. For example, crime may attract the attention of sociologists in their study of social deviance; the problem of the identity of the offender, along with criminological, has forensic, operational-search and other aspects; issues related to the prevention of crime through the appointment and execution of punishment are studied in penitentiary law, etc.
The specificity of the criminological approach to the knowledge of what constitutes the subject of this science is as follows: criminology studies crime and related phenomena as a social and legal reality. It is characterized by the broadest and most consistent sociological approach to the study of crime, the personality of the criminal. In this respect, it differs, for example, from the science of criminal law, which has "its own" sociology, but mainly focuses on the analysis of legal norms, provisions of criminal law on crime and punishment. At the same time, criminology as a socio-legal science is not distracted from the legal characteristics of crime, crime and the offender. And in this respect it differs, for example, from those sections of sociology that study social deviations, and among them - crime.
The specificity of criminological knowledge also lies in the fact that it places a pronounced emphasis on the causal explanation of the social and legal phenomena and processes studied by this science. In general, the existence and development
Criminology is associated with such an approach to the fight against crime, in which the task of preventing this social negative phenomenon is put at the forefront. The general theory, the concept of crime prevention, is the prerogative of criminology. Finally, criminology, unlike the named and other legal sciences, takes part in the development of not only legal, but also other crime prevention measures: socio-economic, cultural, educational, etc.
Along with general scientific methods (formal logic, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogy, modeling, etc.), criminology uses the tools of sociological knowledge, in particular, such methods of obtaining social and legal information as questioning and interviewing, studying documents, observation, experiment . An important role in criminological research is played by the methods of statistical analysis, and above all criminal statistics.
The goals of criminology are primarily to obtain reliable knowledge about everything that is its subject. This science reveals, fixes certain facts of social reality (one way or another connected with the existence of crime), reflects their properties and characteristics, and gives them a scientific description. Further, revealing the essence of the objects under study on the basis of empirical data and theoretical provisions, in particular, establishing the patterns of crime, the action of its causes, the formation of the personality of the offender, the functioning of the crime prevention system, criminology gives them a scientific explanation. By studying trends, prospects for changes in criminologically significant phenomena and processes, this science also predicts their future state and course. The focus of criminology on the scientific substantiation of the system of crime prevention measures also allows us to speak of its practically transformative function.
Criminology, as a complex science, puts at the service of the fight against crime the achievements of many branches of knowledge with which it is closely connected.
As a methodologicalbase criminology, in the study of all that is its subject, widely uses the laws, categories and concepts of philosophy. Criminology is also connected with sociology, especially applied sociology, which studies the content, forms of manifestation and the mechanism of action of the laws of the functioning of society in relation to various spheres of its life in different historical conditions. The connection of criminology with economic science is determined by the fact that some of the phenomena and processes that determine crime are in the field of economics, respectively, economic measures for preventing crime play an important role. The same can be said about political science, given that there are criminogenic factors in the sphere of political relations, and crime prevention is an important part of the policy to combat it. The data of psychological science are of particular importance for the study of the subjective causes and conditions of crime, the personality of the offender, the motivation and mechanism of individual criminal behavior, as well as for the development of important aspects of criminological prevention. Using the provisions and conclusions of pedagogy, the determinants of crime associated with the shortcomings of education and training, unfavorable conditions for the formation of personality in the family and school are studied. One of the essential characteristics of the personality of many criminals is its moral and pedagogical neglect. Based on the achievements of pedagogy, criminologists develop educational measures to influence offenders. The presence of a certain influence of demographic processes on crime determines the connection between criminology and demography. The process of mathematization of science as a whole required the expansion and strengthening of ties between criminology and mathematics. Criminology is also connected with other non-legal sciences, for example, with cybernetics, genetics, futurology, etc.
A close relationship exists between criminology and virtually all legal sciences, especially those related to the so-called criminal
cycle of criminal and penitentiary law, criminal procedure and criminalistics. This follows from the essence of criminology as a social and legal science that has arisen and is developing in the interests of combating crime. Control questions and tasks
1 What does criminology study?
2. What is the specificity of the criminological approach to the study of crime?
3. What methods are used in criminological research?
4 What are the functions of criminology/
5. With what sciences is criminology associated? (Uncover the meaning and content of these links).
The word "criminology" (lat. crimen - crime, Greek logos - doctrine) means "the science of crime." Crime is also the subject of study of other sciences - criminal law, criminology.
But these sciences create a theoretical basis for law enforcement activities to solve crimes and punish the guilty, which is a reaction to an already committed crime.
Criminology, on the other hand, develops the theoretical foundations of crime prevention activities. Currently, criminology is considered as the science of crime in general.
The first scientific work called "Criminology" was published in 1884 by R. Garofalo. Prior to this, other terms were used to refer to the science of crime - criminal anthropology, criminal sociology.
Object and subject of criminology
To understand the essence and features of a particular science, science of science distinguishes between the object and subject of science. The object of science is those phenomena and processes that this science studies and that exist regardless of whether people know them or not (mountains, plants). The subject of science is a part, a separate side of the object (structure of rocks, medicinal properties of plants).
One object can be studied by several sciences, several objects can be distinguished in one object (the subject, therefore, cannot be wider than the object). Applying biological methods to study, for example, a person, we can isolate the subject of biology - cells, organs, the organism as a whole; applying psychological methods - the subject of psychology: intellect, memory, emotions, etc. In a person as an object of knowledge, even the subject of mechanics can be distinguished: considering a person as a material body and subjecting him to a measurement procedure, we get dimensions, mass, speed. But for mechanics, there are no qualitative differences between a person and, for example, a stone.
The subject of science is not just some part, a side of the object (some properties and relations), but such a side of it that is revealed in the process of cognition by means of a method and fixed in a certain sign form (in some representations, concepts, hypotheses, etc.) . Consequently, the subject of science is, to a certain extent, an already known object. The fundamental difference between subject and object lies in the fact that the subject of science is historically changeable. New research methods appear, instruments are improved (for example, a microscope was replaced by a magnifying glass). New properties of the object are revealed, already known ones are studied more fully, the process of cognition goes from the phenomenon to the essence. As a result, the subject of science develops both intensively (in depth) and extensively (in breadth). So, the concept of "crime" did not appear immediately, but was developed in the process of cognition. And, like any scientific concept, its content changed: crime as a property of the individual - crime as the sum of crimes - crime as a social phenomenon. The object of knowledge remains unchanged. Of course, the object, like everything in nature and society, changes, but it does not change as a result of cognition, but independently of it.
In the broad sense of the word, the object of criminology is a person and social communities. Different sciences can differ in objects (for physics - inanimate nature, for sociology - society).
But several sciences can have one common object, while at the same time differing in objects. The specificity of criminology as a science is its complex nature: the objects of cognition of criminology refer to different levels of social reality - a person, a social group, society. Criminology uses the methods and approaches of different sciences, and criminological research is most often intersectoral and interdisciplinary in nature.
Thus, the object of criminology coincides with the object of knowledge of other social sciences (psychology, sociology), but their subjects are different. Consequently, the specifics and features of a particular science are characterized not by an object, but by an object.
In a broad sense, the subject of criminology is the nature and reasons for the existence of socially dangerous manifestations and the objective possibilities of society for their prevention (eradication).
In the subject of criminology, four main elements are usually distinguished: 1) crime; 2) causes and conditions of crime (crimes); 3) the identity of the offender; 4) crime prevention.
Recently, another element has been singled out - the victim of a crime, which illustrates the historical variability (evolution) of the subject of criminology. The branch of criminology that studies the victim of a crime is called victimology.
The problem of the existence of the personality of a criminal in criminology belongs to the category of debatable, polar points of view are expressed on it. Thus, the personality of a criminal is understood as a certain set of properties of the subject of a crime, which, together with other (external) circumstances, determine the commission of a crime. In the set of all properties that characterize a personality, criminology is only interested in criminologically significant properties.
The identity of the offender should not be identified with the concept of "criminal personality", i.e. consider that there are some special people who are always ready to commit a crime.
The study of all elements of the subject of criminology ultimately aims to create a scientific basis for social activity in the prevention of crime. Criminology develops a general theory of crime prevention, which includes: the main directions, forms and methods of preventive activities; socio-economic and organizational-legal foundations for its implementation; system of subjects of preventive activity.
The scientific validity of the theory of prevention and the practical feasibility of the recommended preventive measures are indicators of the social effectiveness of criminology as a science.
Having defined the subject, i.e. having indicated the questions studied by a given science, we actually give a definition of this science. But a more complete picture of science is given not by the subject, but by its content. So, the content of criminology, along with the study of the subject, includes the methodology and research methods, the study of the history of criminology, the development of practical measures to prevent crime.
Methods of criminology
Along with the object and subject, another essential characteristic of science is the methods it uses. A method is a research procedure by which an object of knowledge is studied in order to obtain information about its properties. In general terms, all scientific methods are distinguished by the scope and breadth of application.
According to the scope, two classes of methods are distinguished: theoretical, used to study the properties and relationships of abstract objects (numbers, functions), and empirical, used to study real-life objects (atoms, people). According to the objects and methods used, sciences are classified into abstract, theoretical (logic, mathematics) and empirical, experimental, experimental (chemistry, biology, criminology).
The essential difference between these types of sciences is also that the truth of the propositions and conclusions of the abstract sciences is not established empirically, but follows from the meaning of theoretical terms and the meaning of logical relations. The truth of the statements of the empirical sciences is established by correlating these statements with reality. Of course, the empirical sciences also use concepts that have no direct analogues in the objective world, and some theoretical methods can be used, for example, methods of symbolization, formalization.
According to the breadth of application, methods are divided into general scientific methods, which are used, if not in all, then in many sciences; private scientific applied in the group of related sciences; special, developed for a particular specific science (there are no special methods in criminology).
In addition, there are methods for obtaining information about the properties of an object (observation, polling) and methods for processing the information received (secondary grouping, factor analysis).
The product of scientific knowledge should be objective knowledge, i.e. knowledge about the properties of the object - as they are, outside and independently of the cognizing subject. The main requirement for the scientific method is its neutrality in relation to the object of knowledge, the fundamental inability to change the properties of the object in the process of research.
This instrument of knowledge (instrument) differs from the instrument of labor.
So, you can hammer nails with a microscope (and then it will be a tool), or you can study a ciliate shoe (then it will be a tool of knowledge).
The methodological requirement of the neutrality of the method was developed in the science of modern times and seems quite obvious.
As the further development of science has shown, this requirement is not always feasible. Involvement in the field of scientific knowledge of micro-objects, the emergence of quantum mechanics showed that it is impossible to completely exclude the influence of the subject of knowledge, that there is a so-called effect of the perturbing influence of the device.
The problem of method neutrality is relevant not only for quantum mechanics. This problem, whether the researcher is aware of it or not, confronts both sociology and psychology. And since criminology uses the methods of these sciences, it is also relevant for it.
When conducting an experiment, survey or testing, the researcher must take into account that the very use of these methods can significantly affect the object of knowledge (human). In this case, the application of the method gives us knowledge about the properties of the object of cognition not in natural conditions, but the interaction with the subject of cognition, under the conditions of the intervention of the researcher. In psychology and sociology, this problem is formulated as the problem of the validity (validity) of the methods used.
Method neutrality in relation to the object should not be interpreted as complete independence of the method from the object. The requirement that a method be neutral with respect to an object is just one side of the problem. The other is that the method must be adequate to the object: qualitatively different objects require the use of different methods. Thus, intelligence quotient cannot be measured by weighing the brain.
In criminology, an example of ignoring the specifics of an object was an attempt by C. Lombroso to apply anthropometric methods to study the characteristics of a criminal's personality. The requirement that a method be adequate to an object implies the impossibility of the existence of a single universal method applicable to objects of any nature.
In criminology as an empirical science, such general scientific methods as observation and experiment are used. D. Mill noted that observation sets the task of finding a case suitable for our purposes, and experiment - to create it with the help of an artificial combination of circumstances. The use of methods of observation and experiment in criminology has its own specifics and limits.
Observation is a sensual purposeful perception of the properties of an object that are significant from the point of view of the objectives of the study, and their fixation (description). Observation is historically the earliest and initial form of empirical research; it is structurally included in both experimental and measurement procedures.
Observation can be both direct (immediate) and indirect (indirect). With indirect observation, it is not the object itself or its actions that is observed, but the effect of its interaction with other objects or the results of its actions. Thus, the specificity of indirect observation lies in the fact that the properties of a currently unobserved object are judged by its observed manifestations (there is no smoke without fire). In criminology, direct observation is difficult: after all, the criminologist directly observes not the event of the crime, but its consequences.
An experiment is the study of the properties of an object under artificially created, controlled and managed conditions. Conducting experiments in criminology is also very difficult. And not only because of the complexity of the object of study, but primarily for ethical reasons. Society cannot allow the criminologist to artificially create conditions conducive to the commission of crimes. But experiments to stimulate law-abiding behavior, to test the effectiveness of preventive measures are not only possible, but also regularly carried out.
In addition, it is permissible to use the so-called retrospective experiment (quasi-experiment), i.e. when some real event is interpreted as an experimental situation. The main thing in this case is the ability to fix the initial and final states of the object and to single out the experimental (influencing) and derivative (dependent) factors. In addition, the researcher must make sure that the quasi-experiment meets the requirements of internal (it is the experimental factor that causes the observed changes) and external (the revealed dependence is regular, it can be extended to a non-experimental situation) validity. So, the well-known anti-alcohol campaign in the mid-80s. of the last century can be considered as an experimental situation, which showed how the reduction of state production and sale of alcohol (experimental factor) affected its consumption, crime rate, mortality rate, the growth of home brewing, etc. (dependent factors). As another example, the well-known New York City power failure allows the criminologist to draw certain conclusions about the importance of street lighting in preventing street crime.
Such a rapidly developing method as modeling can also be classified as general scientific. When a real full-scale experiment is impossible or too expensive, they experiment with models, real or abstract (for example, testing aircraft models in a wind tunnel, mathematical modeling of an atomic explosion, etc.). In criminology, the use of the modeling method is a very promising direction, since direct experimentation faces significant difficulties. The most commonly used mathematical models, especially in predicting crime.
In the criminological literature, one can often find the assertion that, along with observation and experiment, general scientific empirical methods used in criminology include deduction and induction. In general, deduction and induction are not empirical methods of cognition, but methods of logical reasoning and proof (different forms of connection between premises and conclusions). The mechanism of deduction consists in extending the general proposition to a particular case, subsuming the particular case under the general rule. The mechanism of induction consists in extending a particular case to a general one, in the transition from knowledge of a part of objects of a certain class to knowledge about the entire class of objects.
Empirical methods provide new information about the properties of an object, and deduction and induction as methods provide new conclusions from knowledge already obtained using empirical methods. This also applies to the so-called methods of scientific induction: the method of single similarity, the method of single difference, the method of concomitant changes, etc.
Since the object of criminology partially coincides with the object of other social sciences, the methods of these sciences, which belong to the category of private scientific ones, can be applied in criminology:
- sociological - analysis of primary documentation (study of criminal cases), interviews (convicts, victims, law enforcement officers), expert assessments, sociometric method (analysis of intra-group relations);
- psychological - biographical, testing;
- statistical - statistical observation, statistical analysis (grouping, factorial and regression analysis).
In criminology as an empirical science, one of the main ways of proving (refuting) theoretical propositions is the hypothetical-deductive method. From any statement or assumption (hypothesis) that is not amenable to direct verification, empirically verifiable (verifiable) consequences are derived in a logical (deductive) way. If the consequences arising from the hypothesis are confirmed in practice, then the hypothesis receives the status of a true statement.
Naturally, general methods of scientific knowledge are also used in criminology - systemic, historical, comparative, etc.
The place of criminology in the system of sciences
Having understood the specifics of the object, subject and methods of criminology, one can determine its place in the system of social sciences and its relationship with them. There are three points of view on this issue: 1) criminology is part of criminal law; 2) criminology is part of sociology; 3) criminology is an independent science.
The first point of view was held by Russian criminologists of the pre-revolutionary period, as well as such well-known Soviet lawyers as A.A. Gertsenzon and A.A. Piontkovsky. This position is not substantiated due to the fact that criminology is not a legal science, criminology and criminal law have different objects of study (and if some sciences have different objects, then these are obviously different sciences).
The object of the science of criminal law is criminal law (a branch of law) as a regulator of social relations, legal norms and institutions; the object of criminology is the social activity of people and social groups. Therefore, the methods used in these sciences are fundamentally different in nature, and, accordingly, their subjects differ. But in general, such a position is quite understandable both historically (criminology “left” criminal law, most criminologists are lawyers by education) and logically ( It is criminal law that defines the concept of criminal). By tradition, until now, in many textbooks, the course of criminology is structured similarly to the course of criminal law - into the General and Special parts.
The second point of view dominates American criminology.
In sociology and criminology, indeed, both the object and some methods partially coincide. But their subjects are still different. Criminology is a complex science, the subject of its study are both the socio-psychological aspects of crime and the individual psychological characteristics of the offender's personality.
Therefore, the subject of criminology cannot be included in the subject of sociology.
Currently, the third point of view has the greatest recognition, the supporters of which believe that criminology is an independent science. But the independence of the science of criminology does not mean that it has no links with other sciences.
Although criminology is not a legal science, it is closely related to criminal law, penitentiary law, criminalistics, etc. This connection is due primarily to the fact that, with all the differences in the methods and nature of the tasks being solved, they have a common goal - to scientifically ensure the fight against crime.
The special connection of criminology with criminal law is also explained by the fact that it is criminal law that determines what acts are criminal, and thereby delineates the boundaries of crime as a phenomenon. And crime is the main element of the subject of criminology. At the same time, it is criminological studies that provide the necessary material for the development of criminal policy, the scientific justification for the criminalization (decriminalization) of acts.
Criminology is connected with penitentiary law by the fact that punishment is one of the factors in the prevention of crimes.
Criminology, studying the causes of penitentiary and recidivist crime, the effectiveness of various types of punishments, provides the penitentiary law with the information necessary to improve the process of executing punishment and correcting convicts.
The connection of criminology with sociology, psychology, social psychology is due to the similarity of the object and the methods used.
As criminology can use the materials of these sciences, so criminological data can serve to a deeper study of the problems of the respective sciences. Sociology studies the patterns of deviant behavior (drunkenness, vagrancy, etc.). Criminology is also interested in these phenomena, but not in themselves, but in their connection with crime. In many cases, this behavior is a condition for committing crimes. Sociological and criminological studies mutually enrich each other.
Criminology is also connected with other sciences. The connection with statistics is due to the fact that crime as a mass phenomenon can be represented as a statistical aggregate. The connection with pedagogy is that criminology studies the process of forming the personality of a criminal, and the formation of personality is a pedagogical problem.
Such connections can be traced with almost all social (and not only) sciences.
A special type of social activity with a minus sign is the criminal activity of people, the commission of crimes. Legal sciences, such as criminal law, criminal procedure, penitentiary, gave people the tools to understand the crime, formulated the types of crimes and reduced them to criminal codes, determined the forms and methods, the procedural order for combating crimes at its various stages, established rules for the treatment of criminals. Increasingly deeper penetration into the problem has shown the need to use the achievements of other sciences and independent methods of exposing criminals in the fight against crime. This task was performed by forensic science, synthesizing legal and technical, natural-science and other methods of combating crime. An important place in the process of cognition of crime was taken by medicine (psychiatry), and recently forensic science has been supplemented by a rapidly developing forensic (criminal) psychology.
But with all this, none of the named sciences covered (and could not cover due to its specificity) the problem of crime in general. However, their development led to the emergence of a special science that studies crime as a phenomenon that exists in society, associated (and conditioned) with other social phenomena, having its own patterns of occurrence, existence and development, requiring specific and diverse forms of combating it. Criminology has become such a science.
Criminology, its findings allow a deeper understanding of the institutions of criminal, corrective labor (penal-executive), procedural law, criminalistics, in general, the practice of combating crime and do not at all belittle them and do not disunite science.
Criminology really “came out” of criminal law and got the opportunity of its own development. Having become independent, it remained closely connected with criminal law, and with other legal sciences, as well as with sociology, philosophy and medicine, especially psychiatry, because it is necessary to distinguish the antisocial behavior of patients from crime, as such, and with a number of other sciences.
The logical development of criminological thought and criminological science allows us to talk about criminology as a general theoretical science, about crime, its causes and conditions accompanying it, the personality of those who commit crimes, as well as methods for controlling and combating crime.
Far from all the elements that are now the subject of criminology, immediately took their place in it. This is especially characteristic of the problem of "the identity of the offender", which only at a relatively recent stage in the development of science has taken its place as an integral subject of criminology. Prior to this, the “personality of the criminal” was studied by sociologists, psychologists, doctors (especially psychiatrists) and representatives of other sciences. Only as the study of crime as a social phenomenon deepened, it became obvious that a person cannot be separated from an act and that, except for criminology, no other science can consider the entire problem of crime as “its own”. Criminology studies crime as a phenomenon, its causes and conditions, the personality of those who commit crimes, the forms and methods of prevention and control over it, while not forgetting that crime is not just a social phenomenon, but a social phenomenon “included” in legal borders. Being objectively existing, these phenomena of social life become classified as criminal in a significant part of cases due to the subjective will of the legislator; for the most part, they branched off from the totality of negative phenomena that existed and exist objectively in human society, because they posed a danger to the normal functioning of social relations in in general. Thus, a stable core of crime was formed: murders, thefts, violence, crimes against morality, against the state, against justice and a number of others. To one degree or another, they are inherent in any socio-political system. Naturally, there are differences, but they appeared at the later stages of human development and depend on the political, economic, and national characteristics of certain states.
The subject of the science of criminology is the very phenomenon (crime) in the unity and diversity of its essence and those factors that are directly related to it.
There are countless definitions of crime. They bear the imprint of the philosophical views of the authors, sociological schools and trends, legal views and even religious ones.
First of all, crime is a form of social behavior of people that disrupts the normal functioning of the social organism. In addition, crime is a social and legal phenomenon that has its own laws of existence, internally contradictory, associated with other social phenomena, often determined by them.
The ratio of crime and specific crimes is the ratio of the whole and the part, the general and the individual. Crime is a collection of crimes. There will be no such totality, there will be no crime as a specifically socio-legal phenomenon. There will also be no such specific forms and methods of combating it; criminal (and not only criminal) legislation, courts and other attributes born of the presence of crime as a socially dangerous phenomenon will have to “disappear”.
Crime in its essence is a negative phenomenon that harms both society as a whole and its specific members. At the same time, there were scientists who said that crime is as natural a phenomenon as a person's birth, death and conception (Lombroso), that crime is a phenomenon inherent in any healthy society (Durkheim). Thus, the understanding of crime as a negative phenomenon was called into question. However, the troubles that crime brings to people hardly allow us to talk about it otherwise than as a negative phenomenon in general.
Crime in its manifestations is diverse, many-sided, which creates enormous difficulties both for its theoretical understanding and for the practice of combating it. It differs in the severity of its individual components, in territories, types, characteristics of the perpetrators of crimes, and in many other parameters. From a criminological point of view, this is a very important constant, because it removes a light idea about crime, about the forms and methods of combating it, about all kinds of unrealistic programs and plans for its eradication, elimination, destruction, and even in a short time. And, on the contrary, it aims society at a difficult (and not always successful) fight against crime, at the inadmissibility of dashing cavalry attacks on it, obliges to deeply analyze its causes, the conditions that contribute to it, to study those who commit crimes, to develop reasonable means of controlling crime. , crime prevention, determine those measures that are related to the solution of economic, socio-cultural, educational tasks carried out by society, the state, and their various cells. On the other hand, to create legislation that contributes to the fight against crime on the basis and within the framework of the law, as well as to organize the activities of the law enforcement system at the required level, without the successful functioning of which an effective fight against crime is impossible.
Crime is a negative socio-legal phenomenon that exists in human society, having its own patterns, quantitative and qualitative characteristics, entailing negative consequences for society and people, and requiring specific state and public measures to control it.
The second component of the science of criminology is the causes of crime and the conditions that accompany it. The problem of causality is one of the key and difficult problems in the social sciences and, of course, in criminology. At the same time, the problem of causality is not only theoretical, but also practical, because without studying the causes of such a phenomenon as crime and the conditions that contribute to it, it is impossible to fight crime on a scientific basis, with knowledge of the matter, and not by the forces of one law enforcement system. and with the help of the law, but setting in motion the economic, social and other levers that society and the state have at their disposal.
The development of criminology and the introduction of its recommendations into practice have shown with sufficient persuasiveness the reality of establishing and causal relationships in the problem of crime and the conditions conducive to the commission of crimes. Practical law enforcement agencies have learned to identify these conditions and causes of crime, and science has armed them with a methodology for this work. The legislator fixed the obligation of law enforcement agencies to identify the causes and conditions for the commission of crimes and take (within their capabilities and competence) measures to prevent them.
In criminological science, the question of classifying the causes of crime is debatable. First of all, because of the complexity of the phenomenon itself, its interrelations and interdependencies both “inside” the phenomenon itself, and outside - with other phenomena. At the same time, it is far from always possible to explain purely specific manifestations of crime through the use of patterns common to the phenomenon and causal relationships. This difficulty, among other things, gave rise, as already mentioned, to the refusal of some scientists even to search for the causes of crime. Given this complexity, it became necessary to establish the causes and conditions of crime in criminal cases, thereby putting the simplest classification into the hands of practice.
Domestic criminologists also classified the causes of crime into: a) the causes of crime as a social phenomenon in general, where they found a place for the influence of general social and other patterns on it; b) causes of certain types of crime; c) the causes of a specific crime, which makes it possible to determine just as specific and realistic preventive measures; d) conditions conducive to the commission of crimes that do not themselves cause the intention to commit a crime, but without the presence of these conditions it would be difficult and even impossible to commit a crime.
The subject of criminology as its component includes the identity of the offender.
However, the theory of the innateness of criminals or a person's predisposition to crime formed the basis of racist and related theories, gave rise to arbitrariness and lawlessness in practice.
The diversity of human personalities and their destinies, determined by the diversity of the complexities of human social existence, necessitates the study of the personality of those who commit crimes, and the causes and conditions that put a person in the state of “personality of a criminal”.
Therefore, a criminologist cannot and should not be alien to sociology, other sciences that study a person, including medicine, especially its part - psychiatry, because a mixture of morbidity and crime is unacceptable.
The subject of criminology is crime prevention. The problem of crime prevention is inseparable from other components of the subject of criminology. It, as it were, completes everything that is connected with the presence of crime in human society and the fight against it. Understanding crime as a phenomenon that has all its roots in the pores of society, its causes, reflecting the inconsistency of its functioning, the personality of those whom society itself turns into criminals, is the basis on which the theory of crime prevention is born. That is why the problem of crime prevention is considered at three levels: general social, special criminological and individual.
Criminology, having an integral part of its subject, crime prevention and based on the complexity of crime as a phenomenon, has developed recommendations related to both different levels of social and state structures, and types of crime. Criminologists have developed approximate plans for the prevention of crimes at enterprises and organizations, in the district, city, region, republic, recidivism of juvenile delinquency, etc.
The fight against crime, its planning, coordination between the regions, within them and the bodies waging this fight, is necessary, because crime does not recognize borders (especially serious forms). Therefore, crime prevention is an activity that requires coordinated work, first of all, by law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Disunity is unacceptable and can bring nothing but harm. Organizational structures specially created for this purpose can serve the purposes of coordination. Thus, an integral part of the subject of criminology - the prevention of crimes - is in itself a complex theoretical problem, implemented in a variety of practical measures, both of a general social plan, up to specific technical measures, and special criminological and legal ones, including proposals for improving legislation.
The subject of criminology also includes the problem of the victim of a crime. In science, this has been expressed in the emergence of a branch of criminology called victimology. Obviously, if there is crime as a phenomenon, there is crime as part of the whole, the offender as the person who actually committed the crime, that is, the victim of the crime, is the victim of crime. Humanity and science have been interested in victims of crimes since ancient times.
If we take as a basis the approaches implemented by scientists to criminology as a science, which were reflected in previously published courses, monographs, textbooks, special articles, then the generalized system of criminology is as follows.
First, the concepts, subject, tasks of science are considered, then the methods used in criminology. Following this, many consider it necessary to outline the history and state of criminology as a science; then its key problems are analyzed (crime, causes and conditions of crime, the problem of perpetrators of crimes, crime prevention, including forecasting and planning to combat crime); further, the problems of juvenile delinquency and youth, recidivism are considered as a separate block; following this, the types of crime are analyzed - violent, mercenary, mercenary-violent, in turn subdivided into subspecies (theft, robbery, etc.); the problem of careless crimes is considered separately.
The methodological basis of criminology, like any science, is the laws and categories of materialistic dialectics. On this basis, ways are determined to understand the origin of crime, its nature and social essence, causes and conditions, personality traits of the offender, and prevention opportunities. First of all, these are such categories of dialectics as essence and phenomenon; united, special and general; necessary and accidental, etc. The law of unity and struggle of opposites serves, in particular, as a methodological prerequisite for studying the causes of crime and the personality of a criminal, his positive and negative properties, and revealing the factors that determine a specific criminal act. The law of transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones explains the change in the structure of crime, trends in the qualitative characteristics of its types.
Thus, on the basis of the laws and categories of dialectics, taking into account specific historical conditions, not only an in-depth understanding and study of criminological objects is possible, but also a targeted, consistent anti-criminogenic impact on social phenomena and processes.
In criminology (as in law in general) there are generic and specific concepts. So, crime is a generic concept, from which specific concepts grow, showing the diversity of crime. This is both recidivism, and women's, and, say, thieves', official, etc. Criminology explores the connections and interdependencies between generic and specific concepts, “descending” below, to the analysis of specific crimes and based on the fact that crime is a mass phenomenon that has its own patterns, one way or another manifesting itself at its highest level, then concretizing at the middle level. (specific), finally, acquiring quite clearly defined outlines at the level of a single crime, which is very important, because crime, as we have already seen, is not only a single phenomenon, but also the sum of crimes committed. The problem of crime prevention is, in particular, the problem of the gradual concretization of preventive measures from the general, global level to quite specific, affordable implementations of preventive measures.
Criminology is a humanistic science, because its goals are knowledge of crime, those who commit a crime, understanding the causes of this negative phenomenon, developing preventive measures, treating those whom society itself has made criminals.
Criminology is a very practical science. It gives both an understanding of the problem of crime in general, and an understanding of what society can do to combat it, what means and methods it must use, how to engage in lawmaking, taking into account the state, nature, structure of crime, what measures are primary in the fight against crime, what secondary, what is the place of law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime, who are the criminals, what is primary in the fight against crime - law and punishment or economic, social, educational measures, etc.
Criminology teaches people to “read” criminal statistics correctly, and after reading them, to draw practical conclusions: where to take economic measures, where to strengthen educational work, and where and in relation to what types of crime to activate the law enforcement system and use criminal penalties more forcefully. Anyone who has mastered at least the basics of criminology, is used to what can be called criminological thinking, will never see the problem of crime in a simplified form, will understand that the activities of law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime are many, but not all. The problem of combating crime is a complex of economic, social, political, educational and legal measures. In addition, the fight against crime is not a one-time campaign to “eliminate” crime as such in general, or its individual types, but the painstaking daily work of the entire system of the state and society. It is obvious that in a society torn apart by contradictions, with a destroyed economy and moral values, a struggle of political antipodes that do not hear each other, success in the fight against crime (a consequence of these processes) cannot be achieved with the help of spells and the most severe laws. That is why the conclusions of criminologists about crime and its causes, no matter how unpleasant and inconvenient, for sober politicians - help in organizing the fight against crime. For crime is a phenomenon inherent in any socio-political system. And it focuses law enforcement agencies on the best organization of work, taking into account the state, dynamics, structure, nature of crime, its territorial differences, the characteristics of the types of crime and the perpetrators of crimes.
