Violent Crime, Its Forms and Patterns

Summary on:

 «Violent Crime, Its Forms and Patterns»

Dnipro - 2023

Violent crime is a negative social phenomenon of a criminal-legal nature, which in the conditions of objective reality manifests itself in a multitude of socially dangerous manifestations, the commission of which is determined by violent motivation.

The most important feature that determines the specifics of violent crime is the integrative role of violence on the subjective and objective levels. When determining the criminological meaning of the category "violence", one should take into account its legal, including criminal-legal, as well as sociological meaning.

So, in particular, two types of violence are usually distinguished in the theory of criminal law:

1 – physical, which consists in the unlawful intentional physical influence on another person against his will, encroaching on his bodily integrity, limiting or excluding freedom of movement, etc.;

2 - mental - as a threat of physical violence.

At the subjective level, violent criminal manifestations are determined by aggressive violent motivation. In general, depending on the role of violence in the motivation of criminal behavior, violent crimes are divided into two groups:

- rationally violent crimes, where violence is considered as a means of achieving an alternative (non-violent) goal, the so-called "instrumental violence" (for example, a robbery with the aim of seizing someone else's property);

- aggressive-violent crimes, during the commission of which the goal is considered to have been achieved from the moment the violence was committed (for example, intentional murder motivated by personal enmity).

Accordingly, the scope of this concept is determined. At the same time, taking into account the substantive approach, it seems more productive to define violent crime through the prism of so-called "enemy aggression". The so-called "hostile aggression" is aimed at causing harm to an opponent in a conflict situation or another person who identifies with him.

Violence can include any humiliation of a person, all that results in the limitation of individual physical and spiritual views on life. Violent encroachment, in addition to what is aimed at a person's physical structure or sexual integrity, can additionally encroach on a person's will, honor or dignity, his mental health and economic freedom. Depending on the motives and goals, violent crimes are divided into the following groups: - violent crimes, the motives of which were formed under the influence of interpersonal conflict, and the goal of violence was achieved after its occurrence; - violent crimes, for which the motive and goal are so contradictory in content that the goal is achieved in the process of committing violent actions.