Criminal Policy and Its Importance for Counteracting Female Crime

The author notes that Russian criminal law theories have so far failed to work out their own fundamental strategy — a regulated system of theoretical knowledge — of female crime, the regularities of its emergence and development, the causes of its existence and spread, as well as control measures and types of counteracting this variety of crime. Modern criminal policy has not yet been formulated as a comprehensive concept and cannot be viewed as an action plan for the future. The conducted work allowed the author to claim that the existing research approaches to female crime prevention differ not only by the spheres of counteracting certain types of crimes, or by setting preventive, repressive or strategic tasks, but also by choosing specific territories or regions, and establishing specific deadlines for the implementation of some or other approach. It is proven that practitioners and researchers solve the formulated tasks by conducting research in a number of areas: collecting information, analyzing it, registering and improving criminal policy for specific types of crime; identifying trends and gaps in the strategic control over female crime; providing information support for law enforcement bodies; recognizing the existing drawbacks in the work of law enforcement bodies, as well as the necessity of further research in the sphere of female crime prevention. The author identified and described key causes, prerequisites and conditions for the existence, spread and reproduction of female crime: socio-economical, socio-political, legal, socio-psychological and other determinants and factors, and presented an analysis of the typology of female criminals. It is proven that the system of supporting crime victims may include diverse measures, thus, law enforcement employees may offer specific advice to crime victims that will teach them not to rely solely on law enforcement bodies. This measure will lead to a greater partnership of all stakeholders and will offer women the support they need. The author also formulates the strategic basis of the system of preventive influence on the prerequisites, causes and conditions of female crime, the prospective ways and directions in the work of law enforcement bodies on the effective limitation and suppression of criminal behavior of women and female convicts. Research results make it possible to state that the current changes in criminal policy are closely connected with socio-cultural changes, and the very concept of criminal policy, by following these changes, will help speed up the development of the existing knowledge on female crime, increase the volume of available information and data on it, as well as widen the application of the obtained results, conclusions and materials in law enforcement, lawmaking, and socio-economic spheres.