What is criminal responsibility?

In jurisprudence, there are two types of law:administrative and criminal. They differ in the composition of the crime and the amount of punishment. Criminal law was born a long time ago, in ancient Rome. Crime is a bad deed that causes harm to health, life, property of a person. And this is how modern science defines what criminal responsibility is: it is a system of measures that the state applies to citizens who have committed a crime. These measures express the society's negative attitude towards the perpetrator, who caused physical, moral or property harm to another person. He must be punished, which will prevent the repetition of such actions.

The onset of criminal liability

Criminal liability of minorscomes in different countries in different ways. For example, in the USA this is 16 years, in France at 13, in Germany at 14, in Finland at 15 years. But England and Ireland have some types of crimes, according to which children from 10 years can be brought to criminal account! In the Russian Federation, the Criminal Code refers to the minimum age at which an adolescent can be prosecuted. This is 16 years old. But there are a number of crimes in Russia, for which they are punished, starting from the age of 14. This is physical violence, murder, deliberate infliction of grievous bodily harm, rape. Since 14 years, adolescents have been tried without a discount for a young age for theft, robbery, robbery, extortion, car theft, theft of weapons, drug theft. It is even impossible to imagine that teenagers can participate in a terrorist act, vandalism, kidnapping a person, taking hostages. But the age of criminal responsibility for these crimes is also 14 years. And here are the more popular crimes - a false report of a terrorist act, hooliganism and embezzlement under aggravating circumstances, disabling vehicles or various types of communication.

Exemption from criminal liability

In different countries there are different reasons forexemption from liability, partial or complete. The first reason is active repentance. If the perpetrator of a crime actively helps the investigation, seeks to make amends and correct the consequences, the state also goes to the meeting. Thus, it emphasizes the benefits of sincere repentance, one might even say that it promotes correct behavior. Secondly, the state saves on the activities of the judiciary and the maintenance of the prisoner during the entire term of punishment. This also happens because the active repentance of judicial systems in many countries is equated with the denial of a crime.

Reconciliation with the victim is also an excusefor exemption from responsibility or reduction of the term of punishment. Reconcile and reach certain agreements with the victim is not so easy. Therefore, if reconciliation has taken place, it is believed that the perpetrator realized the full gravity of the consequences of the deed and deserved leniency. This happens if the basis of criminal liability is small. But reconciliation is not taken into account in particularly serious crimes. Serious indulgence in punishment or complete exemption from criminal liability is possible if: the degree of danger of the committed is small, the crime is committed for the first time, the offender fully acknowledged his guilt, reimbursed the damage to the victim, and made amends for the harmful consequences of the crime.

And the third reason for liberation fromresponsibility - the expiration of the limitation period. For each type of crime, the limitation period is different. What happens to a criminal if many years have passed since the commission of illegal actions? Of course, it will change. In what direction, better or worse, it does not matter. The Criminal Code only considers the expiration of the term. There are crimes that are not considered in a month, but there are those who do not forgive 10 or more years.