GROUNDS FOR CRIMINALIZATION OF SOME MODERN FORMS OF MENTAL VIOLENCE (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF A SPECIFIC SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY)
The fight against encroachments against the person is the main direction of the criminal policy pursued by the Russian Federation. Criminal encroachments on individual rights, namely on life and health, open a special part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. However, there are problems in the law enforcement practice of the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation when it comes to the criminal legal protection of human mental health. Due to the widespread use of the Internet, new dangerous types of mental violence are emerging. These types include: stalking and bullying. The article analyzes the data of socially dangerous phenomena. In the course of studying «stalking» and «bullying», their high degree of public danger is justified as one of the criteria for criminalization. The author comes to these conclusions by conducting his own sociological research. This study was conducted by the questionnaire method. The respondents were employees of the internal affairs bodies in the number of 100 people, namely: interrogators, investigators, district police commissioners, juvenile inspectors, operational duty officers. According to the results of the study, the author came to the following conclusions: 1. Over the past 3 years, there has been a tendency to increase the facts of mental violence in interpersonal relationships (bullying, obsessive harassment, bullying, cruelty). 2. Law enforcement officers are increasingly confronted in practice with citizens’ appeals about obsessive harassment (stalking), harassment of minors (bullying), including on the Internet. 3. Currently, there is no clear legal mechanism to ensure the safety of citizens from such socially dangerous phenomena as stalking and bullying, which means that citizens who have been subjected to such mental violence remain unprotected.