Differentiation of criminal responsibility of persons under age

Abstract

Differentiation of criminal responsibility of people underage is built based on decreasing of number of punishments which can be imposed on them, and decreasing the duration of these punishments. The feature of person underage also has an impact on peculiarities of exemption from criminal responsibility or punishment, on shortening the terms (statute limitation, criminal record etc.), on possibility of application of certain methods of influence under the Criminal code of Ukraine. Though, sanctions of the norms of the Special part of the Criminal Code are initially constructed to be applied to criminals older than 18 years. That’s why when norms concerning responsibility of a person underage are applied on sanctions of the Special part of the Code, the situations objecting to the primary idea of the legislator (to mitigate the punishment) occur. For instance, if the sanction contains several alternative punishments the court can`t impose some of them on the criminal underage due to normative restrictions. That’s why the judge sometimes is obliged to impose the most strict punishment, as the only one able for being imposed. Moreover, sometimes the court can`t impose any of the punishments, cause all of them can`t be applied to those younger than 18. The algorithm of mitigating punishment for criminals underage, proposed by the legislator, has lots of shortcomings. Sometimes the court has no choice but to impose absolutely defined punishment. Differentiation of criminal responsibility between different groups of people underage is imperfect as well. That’s why, it is necessary to widen the quantity of punishments, and decrease their borders proportionally in such a way, that differentiation of criminal responsibility among groups of people under 18 occurs. Punishments, which can be imposed by the court on persons underage must be restricted in proportional numbers, not absolute. It is reasonable to decrease by 20% for the age group of 16-17 years old and by 30% for the age group of 14-15 years old the upper limit of punishment, which is imposed on persons underage. These provisions must be applied while imposing either the main most strict punishment or alternative less strict main punishments and additional punishments. Keywords: differentiation of criminal responsibility, person underage, punishment, age category.