On the Issue of Countering Modern Professional Crime in Russia by Criminal Law Measures: Opportunities and Prospects

The article considers criminal law measures to counteract professional crime in Russia, as well as individual proposals from researchers to improve modern domestic criminal legislation in line with tightening the fight against professional criminals. It is determined that criminal law measures directly countering modern professional criminal activity are not effective enough, and «indirect» ones do not allow legislative efforts to focus on combating professional criminals. In view of this, it was noted that the «leading» role in countering professional crime should be played not by criminal law, but by organizational and managerial, technical, general social and some other measures that make it possible to effectively combat types of crime with a high level of latency. Among the prospects for improving domestic criminal legislation within the framework of the current criminal law doctrine to solve this problem, the need for further modernization of qualification institutions, multiplicity of crimes, strengthening the principle of individualization and differentiation of punishment, contributing if not to the elimination of professional crime, then minimizing the negative consequences of the activities of professional criminals, is noted.