Alternatives to Imprisonment in Russian Criminal Law
Kazakova V.A. Alternatives to imprisonment in Russian criminal law. Penitentiary Science, 2026, vol. 20, no. 2 (74), pp. 152–161. doi 10.46741/2713-2811.2026.74.2.005
the article is devoted to the consideration of a set of such alternatives to imprisonment
as non-custodial punishments, exemption from criminal liability, exemption from criminal punishment,
and other measures of a criminal-legal nature. Purpose: based on the study of criminal law norms,
the practice of their application, and doctrinal positions, to identify shortcomings of the distribution
of measures of influence on a person who has committed a crime by their types, to show intersectoral
and intra-sectoral contradictions in their regulation, and the flaws of law enforcement. Methods:
method of analysis, formal legal, comparative legal and statistical methods. Results: the analysis
of criminal and related branches of legislation showed haphazard regulation and application of the
above-mentioned institutions in terms of the presence and scope of punishment, inconsistency of
the conditions and grounds for their use, lack of criteria for choosing between them, the uncertain
legal nature of a court fine, suspended sentence; duplication of conditions of restriction of liberty
and conditional sentence, imperfection of the types of exemption from criminal liability in connection
with conscription and punishment in connection with military service, uncertainty of judicial
discretion in deciding on exemption from liability and punishment; intersectoral contradictions in the
regulation of deferral of punishment, deferral (installment) fines in the Criminal Code of the Russian
Federation and the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation. Conclusion: it is necessary
to bring institutions of exemption from criminal liability and punishment into the system, to link them
logically with types of punishments not related to imprisonment, to formulate criteria, to select
them depending on the characteristics of the crime and the offender, the grounds and conditions of
application, to define the boundaries of judicial discretion.
Keywords: alternatives to imprisonment; release from punishment; release from responsibility; suspended sentence; postponement of the execution of punishment; judicial fine, change of the situation.
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