Concerning the concept of criminal offense and its types

Abstract

The article proves the necessity of rethinking one of the dogmas of criminal law - the concept of a criminal offense. A new look at the essence and meaning of this phenomenon and its types is offered with appropriate arguments. The authors propose to change the angle of view on the concept of a criminal offense, transferring it from the public plane to a private one and to consider such an offense mainly as the cause of a private legal conflict between the person who committed the criminal and illegal act and the victim. Such a proposal is primarily due to the expansion of the arsenal of means of criminal-legal response to the commission of a criminal offense compared to the past, when punishment was considered to be almost the only such means. Therefore, the concept of the criminal offense itself must evolve in the same way. Such an approach will contribute to the restoration of a sense of social justice between the parties to the conflict, the saving of human, material and procedural resources when conducting criminal pre-trial/trial proceedings, and, accordingly, will relieve the judicial system, leaving only those conflicts that could not be resolved by extrajudicial methods. It is proposed to revise the content of the concept of a criminal offense, excluding from it such a feature as "guilt", "guilt" and considering it as an optional feature of this phenomenon. According to certain criteria, criminal offenses have been classified, which has not only theoretical, but also practical significance.