On the Concept of a Single Sexual Crime

УДК 343.54, ББК 67.408.113

Abstract

The absence in the law of the concept of a single crime gives rise to a situation of legal ambiguity in which acts committed under similar circumstances may receive different legal assessments. The concept of a single crime should be enshrined in the criminal law itself and become the formal basis for its interpretation in relation to the characteristics of various groups of crimes. For the purposes of qualifying sexual crimes, a single continuing crime can be defined in the footnote to the article with which Chapter 18 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation begins as follows: «In cases where two or more acts of a sexual nature were committed with the same intent in legally identical ways, the act should be considered as a single continuing crime». Perhaps this approach will be the first step towards creating a common definition that can be enshrined in the General Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, for example, in Art. 141 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Since law enforcement practice defines a single crime through the concept of single intent, its definition must be enshrined in Part 4 of Art. 25 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and defined as intent to commit two or more acts that arose before the first of these acts or in the process of committing one of them, when the degree of specification of the desired actions and their consequences makes it possible to determine the characteristics of a specific crime or group of crimes. The practice of imposing punishment also requires, along with other circumstances, taking into account the number of episodes of criminal influence on the victim, as well as the duration of the period of criminal influence on them, which must be reflected in the act of official interpretation.