On Improving the Effectiveness of Probation

Abstract

The article considers the state of theory and practice of the institution of probation in domestic criminal law: its normative legal basis and practice of application. It is concluded that the reasons of the low effectiveness of this traditional criminal law measure of a criminal nature, with a very stable and significant scale of its application, lie, firstly, in the unjustified imposition of a suspended sentence on persons who have committed a crime, which, according to their socio-legal characteristics, do not deserve it, and, secondly, in the absence of the requirements necessary for such a serious benefit of a criminal law nature for the behavior of a probationer during the probation period. The real situation is that if a probationer does not commit a new crime during the probation period, the court usually does not even remember its existence. As a result, there are no visible criminal consequences of committing a crime for a probationer, except for compensation for the damage caused by the crime (in full or in part), neither actually nor legally occurs. The elimination of these reasons at the law enforcement level is impossible, it is necessary to change the legislative regulation of this measure of a criminal law nature with its orientation towards convicts who can actually justify their trust in the form of conditional non-use of the sentence imposed.