Suicide terrorism as a kind of terroristic actions
The article examines the criminological characteristics of suicide terrorism as a form of political violence in the contemporary world. Despite the fact that suicide terrorism has been seen in different historical epochs, only in the second half of the twentieth century terrorism of suicide bombers became a widespread violent practice. The analysis of survey items on this topic allows to define suicidal terrorism as violent practices aimed at causing the maximum damage to the civilian population and (or) civilian objects, as well as state authorities, institutions or international organizations in order to intimidate the population and influence the official authorities; these acts inovlve a conscious refusal of the contractosr from their own lives. Thus suicidal terrorism is presented in two forms: classic suicide terrorists and suicide terrorists of high probability. Analysis of statistical data on the spread of suicide terrorism in the world allowed determining a sharp growth trend of this type of terrorism in the twenty-first century, as well as the correlation of changes in specific factor of the injury depending on the tactics of suicide terrorism. Discusses two key approaches to understand of the causes of suicide terrorism. The first approach explains suicidal terrorism from a position of religious consciousness and the crisis of national and cultural values, which has been historically prevailing in a traditional society. In the second approach, the determination of suicide terrorism is determined by social protest against an unjust system of social organization and existing social relations. In this approach, dangerous acts of suicide are committed in order to influence public authorities, in order to change social stratification, to eliminate discriminatory attitudes, to reduce the risks of social injustice and to change the existing system of distribution of public goods.