Speculations on Supposed Crime in Criminology

Abstract

Markuntsov Sergey - Assiociate Professor, Department of Criminal Law, Law Faculty, National Research University Higher School of Economics, . Address: 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation, Candidate of Juridical Sciences. E-mail: sam.hse@mail.ru.

The article considers the problems of introducing into legal language the criminological differing from legal criminal law concept of crime and the concept of supposed crime. A number of Russian criminal study academics (L. Kondratyuk, V. Ovchinskiy, G. Gorshenkov) have attempted to define crime in terms of criminal studies. D.A. Shestakov suggests introducing supposed crime, besides the concept of crime. The scholar considers that criminal studies should primarily rely on material (sociological) definition of crime as crime exists independently from prohibition agreement. However, he thinks that criminal experts should have legal definitions for corpa delicti and their types. The author of this article finds this approach controversial. A rather vague concept of crime has been an umbrella concept unifying conceptual constructs of these branches. This opposition at a conceptual level will cause more opposition between criminal studies and criminal law and thus dissociation of the branches of law. The place of criminal studies has been changing in the system of legal subjects. Currently, Russian legal literature considers criminal studies as a legal branch. It seems that if a crime and a supposed crime acquire their own criminal study definitions, more significant question may arise, e.g. on arranging criminal research for criminal law, on a clearer division of the subjects of research and probably the necessity to develop additional sociological research within civil law sociology as part of criminal law.