Criminal Law Characteristics of an Organized Group
The paper examines the content of the organized criminal group characteristics provided for under the law. The criminal activity of a stable association of persons poses an increased public danger. The identification of such facts and their investigation is fraught with significant difficulties that arise also due to the evaluative nature of the concept of "organized group". Therefore, its essence is analyzed not only on the basis of theoretical sources, but also in the context of judicial practice. The author compares and generalizes the signs listed in the relevant decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and in court decisions on specific criminal cases. A correct understanding of the organized group characteristics is necessary for the competent qualification of crimes committed by its members, and the successful proof of their fault. The author summarizes that the sustainability of complicity is based on two complementary aspects. The first provides for a close, relatively long-term relationship between members of the group united by criminal motivation and goals (which ensures the stability of its main composition), as well as the recognition by ordinary participants of the decisions of their leader or the leading core of the group or decisions jointly made by the group as binding. The second aspect of sustainability provides for the implementation of effective criminal activity through the advance development of its plan and a clear distribution of role functions among the group members, ensuring the consistency of their actions, and the implementation of other measures necessary for the successful achievement of the intended goals. In cases where the conspiracy of the members of the group occurred immediately before the commission of the crime or took place in advance, but there was no close relationship and careful joint preparation for it we deal with a group of persons created by prior conspiracy due to the lack of stability of such an association.