Abstract: The article highlights the main problems associated with the definition of persons with leadership status in the criminal environment, the categories of persons are considered: "thief in law", "poser", "looker" and their place in the criminal hierarchy. The position of persons who are the leaders of organized criminal communities (OPS), who do not have the specified criminal statuses, but occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy of the OPS created by them, is disclosed. The article also considers the position in the criminal hierarchy of "thieves in law", deprived by the decision of the thieves' meeting of status leadership (uncrowned), "thieves in law" retired (proshlyakov). The author raises the question of the ability of persons of this category to occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy (to be subjects of crimes provided for in Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
  In the course of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the criminal hierarchy on the outside is not identical to the prison criminal hierarchy (penitentiary), and a person who occupies a sufficiently high criminal status in the prison hierarchy, after being released and joining a criminal community (criminal organization), may not occupy a leading position there. The author also gives arguments that such persons as "poser" and "looker" occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy only if they are the leaders of OPS and EOPS, having a multi-level hierarchy in their structure with the presence of a higher position in it, in all other cases, according to the author, persons of this category do not occupy the highest, and the "high" position and subjects of Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are not.

Abstract: The article highlights the main problems associated with the implementation of criminal responsibility for occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy, special attention is paid to issues related to the definition of "a person occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy".
At the same time, the author notes that the Criminal Code of Russia does not disclose the key concepts used in the disposition of Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, at the same time indicating that these concepts are also not contained in the current Resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Russia. The author identifies the main problems that reduce the effectiveness of law enforcement of Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia. The main conclusions of the study are the need to improve Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia. In this connection, it is proposed to introduce a legislative definition of "a person occupying the highest position in the criminal hierarchy" in the form of a note to Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia, by analogy with a note to Article 285 of the Criminal Code of Russia. In addition, the author suggests possible ways to solve the identified problems related to the implementation of Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia, in particular, it indicates the need to adopt a Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Russia on the application of these articles and the adoption of the Federal Law "On Combating Organized Crime".