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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 71 (2021): 703-714
1. The theoretical basis of the state’s criminal-legal policy
1.1. Approaches to understanding the criminal - legal policy of
the state
There are now some relatively contradictory approaches to understanding
the criminal policy of the state in science. According to the rst approach,
the concept of «criminal policy of the state» is considered in a broad sense,
where the concept of «criminal-legal policy of the state» is part of the rst.
According to proponents of this approach, the criminal policy of the
state covers all the activities of state and local governments, as well as
public associations and citizens to ght crime and eliminate its negative
consequences. At the same time, in the opinion of A. A. Herzenzon, tools of
both legal and other origin (environmental, medical, economic measures)
can be used to achieve these goals (Herzenzon, 1970; Kazyrytski, 2020).
This approach is partially reected in the denition formulated by N.A.
Belyaev (1986), who under the criminal policy understands
The direction of state and public bodies and organizations based on objective
laws of development of society to protect the interests of citizens from criminal
encroachments by the use of punishment or replacement of punishment measures
of administrative or public inuence to the persons who committed them, as well
as by preventing crimes by means of the threat of punishment (1986: 15).
Proponents of the second approach assume that only legal tools and only
authorized law enforcement agencies can be used to combat crime. At the
same time, the priority is the use of legal means that have found enshrining
in criminal, criminal procedure, and criminal-executive legislation (Zubkov
and Zubkova, 2002).
Thus, the content of the criminal policy includes the policy of criminal-
legal, criminal-procedural, criminal-executive, crime prevention policy,
criminal-tactical policy, penitentiary, criminal-preventive, criminal,
operational-investigative, etc. (Troshchenko, 2011). Categories of criminal-
legal policy and criminal policy of the state in this case also correlate with
each other as part and whole and are not considered as equivalent. This
approach includes the denition of criminal policy given by A.I. Korobeyev
(2019), according to which:
Criminal policy is a general line developed by the state, dening the main
directions, goals and means of inuencing crime by forming criminal, criminal-
procedural, criminal-executive legislation, regulating the practice of its application,
as well as by developing and implementing measures aimed at preventing crimes
(2019: 16).
Finally, the proponents of the third approach view the criminal policy of
the State in a narrow sense. Therefore, it is more than a criminal policy, but