Application of Economic Laws in Criminal Law and Criminology

Abstract

The paper highlights that the science of criminal law and criminology need serious modernization. In this regard, it is suggested, inter alia, that an economic approach be applied in criminal and criminological studies. Using representative examples the author demonstrates the possipility of its application. In particular, an economic law of diminishing marginal utility of the good is noted. The manifestation of the aforementioned law in criminal law is the prevalence of crimes that possess the quality of either increasing, and, thus, facilitating the need of society in criminal repression, or decreasing, which affects criminalization of acts and the imposition of criminal penalties. Under the law of diminishing marginal utility, when the crime is being investigated and detected the priority should be given to the most serious crimes. Meanwhile, domestic criminal statistics refutes these assumptions. As a positive example of combating crime the author gives the example of Germany. By means of the theory of marginal utility, the paper determines a number of laws that concern the application of criminal penalties in response to a committed crime: 1) Harmfulness of punishment is determined by the subjective evaluation of an offender who is serving it, and not by the court imposing punishment; 2) harmfulness of punishment increases with each new unit of the bad and is determined by the ultimate harmfulness of the marginal unit of the bad. Harmfulness of the bad, as well as the usefulness of the good, has boundaries beyond which the bad gradually loses its properties (for example, the maximum harmfulness of a fine is limited to the aggregate value of property belonging to the offender). The article also proposes to take into account a cyclical character of the society development. In particular, cyclical fluctuations of relevant indicators are demonstrated by the example of the registered crime dynamics. However, it is noted that there is no absolute correlation between the cycles of economic activity and crime and criminal law regulation. It is proposed to allocate seasonal, short-term (up to 3-5 years), middle-term (to 10-15 years) and long-term (over 10-15 years) cycles of crime and crime control. The paper proposes to use a system of indicators to be used in the field of crime prevention.