Kadnikov N.G. On the issue of the novels of the criminal law in the light of the theory of criminalization and decriminalization

Abstract: The paper presents the analysis of the modern condition of the criminal law in the light of the theory of criminalization and decriminalization. The author pays significant attention to the tendency of the criminal policy reflecting the processes of criminalization and decriminalization of deeds. The author notes that decriminalization can be carried out by means of exclusion of criminal punishability of a deed and its recognition as a non-socially dangerous or non-illegal, or its transmission to the category of an administrative, disciplinary or civil delict. The application of the historical, formal-logical, and the systems methods of cognition helped the author to analyze the criminal law in the light of the theory of criminalization and decriminalization. The penal law-making drawbacks and the side effects of criminalization can lead to undesirable consequences: the gaps in penal regulation, a redundant repressiveness, the lack of a necessary interpretation. The excessive criminalization undermines two principles of penal policy: the principle of economy of penal repression, due to the fact that criminal liability is imposed on an unreasonably large number of citizens, and the principle of unavoidability of punishment, due to the fact that often such a law is not used in practice. 

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