Innovations in Teaching Criminal Law

Abstract

This article is devoted to identifying the correlation of such categories of conceptuality as the concept, conceptual scheme, conceptual system, conceptual analysis, concept and conceptualization in relation to criminal law. It is noted that in classical science the concept is understood as a preliminary organization of theoretical material, and in criminal law the concept is often identified with theory. The article shows that the development of scientific thought goes through three stages of development: from a concept (initial idea) to a conceptual scheme (a detailed idea), then to a conceptual system (a complete scientific theory). In this context, competing criminal law theories are considered: the concept of the stages of a crime (a contradictory conceptual system) and the concept of types of unfinished crime (a conceptual scheme). The authors introduce the notion of “concept” into the scientific language of criminal law to denote the mental units of criminal law knowledge, which are widely used by the doctrine, as well as enshrined in the criminal legislation. Legislative concepts are the means of constructing criminal law, institutions and other normative blocks. Doctrinal concepts appear in criminal law as a means of interpreting criminal law regulations or are used to formulate new concepts. Concepts of this type function as elements of criminal law in the mode of understanding and explanation. In the process of conceptualization, the mental images of objects that have a criminal legal significance are first objectified as doctrinal concepts, and then enshrined in criminal law as legal concepts. In conclusion, the authors note that inexperienced postgraduate students rarely use the categories of conceptuality and its parameters fixed in the regulatory material of the Criminal Code in their studies. As a result, such studies constitute a compilation review of the views of others, which unreasonably stands out as new (derivative) knowledge in the absence of a detailed author’s concept.