The theoretical model for the responsibility for crimes against individuals (chapters 16–18 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

The article explores the theoretical premises underlying the construction of a scientific and practical model for regulating the characteristics that differentiate responsibility for crimes against the person, as outlined in Chapters 16–18 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Special attention is given to issues of systemacity in criminal law as a fundamental principle of legal regulation, requiring internal consistency, logical coherence, and uniformity of terminology in legal norms. The author analyzes existing defects in the legal regulation of qualifying : the fragmentary nature of regulation, inconsistency in terminology, inconsistent evaluation of identical circumstances in various compositions of crimes, and the presence of so-called "anomalous" characteristics, whose differentiating role is questionable. The author also examines doctrinal approaches to the unification and systematization of characteristics, including proposals for their hierarchical ranking, optimization of the legal and technical formulation of norms, and differentiation of characteristics based on their influence on the social danger of the act. Particular attention is paid to the necessity of correlating theoretical recommendations with criminological justification and practical needs of law enforcement, as well as the risk of arbitrariness when mechanically expanding the lists of aggravating circumstances without proper conceptual justification. The study employs general scientific and specific scientific methods: induction, deduction, comparative legal methods, systemic-structural, and formal-legal methods. As a result of the research, key problems have been identified: terminological inconsistency of similar characteristics; asymmetry in their consolidation in similar compositions; excessive detail in "anomalous" circumstances; and a lack of hierarchy in the differentiating significance of characteristics. The author critically evaluates doctrinal proposals for the unification of characteristics (including through their consolidation) and insists on the necessity to abandon a formal-technical approach in favor of the principle of proportionality of social danger. A model for scientific and practical regulation is justified, which includes: standardization of legal-technical formulation of norms; uniform textual expression of identical characteristics; hierarchical arrangement of characteristics by elements of the crime composition – from the object to the subjective side; differentiated application of characteristics considering their real contribution to increasing the degree of social danger; and rationalization of “anomalous” characteristics. It is emphasized that the construction of an effective regulatory model is only possible under the condition of systemic, rather than fragmentary, optimization of criminal law.