Criminological characterisation of violent crimes involving firearms, committed against life and well-being of people

Abstract

Efficiency of crime preventive measures directly depends on the awareness of law enforcement agents about the object of preventive influence. It is especially important to consider this circumstance in relation to violent infringements. Therefore, knowledge concerning the criminological profile of crimes against life and well-being of people that are committed with firearms, under severe criminogenic conditions in the country, has a special value.

As of today, the category “criminological charasteristic of criminality” is yet to receive it’s solid value. Typically, this term consists of descriptions of distinctive features of criminality as a phenomenon, which is composed via analysis of it’s quantitative and qualitative indicators, namely: total amount of offences and perpetrators, coefficient of criminality (coefficients of crime intensity and crime activity), crime dynamics, crime structure, geography of crime and price of crime.

In this research a universally recognized model of criminological characteristic was used, which involves such indicators: crime level, crime coefficient, crime dynamics, crime structure, geography of crime, price of crime and level of latency.

The purpose of this article is to determine the current state and tendencies of crimes against life and well-being of people involving firearms use in Ukraine. The challenge of this article is to provide a criminological characteristic of this phenomenon under modern conditions.

Research results have established a general pattern of lowering levels of certain crimes, qualified by the following  articles of Criminal Code of Ukraine: 115 “Homicide”, 116 “Murder commited in the heat of passion”, 118 “Murder in excess of necessary defense or in excess of measures necessary to apprehend an offender”, 119 “Negligent homicide”, 121 “Intended grievous bodily injury”, 122 “Intended bodily injury of medium gravity”, 123 “Intended grievous bodily injury inflicted in the heat of passion”, 124 “Intended grievous bodily injury inflicted in excess of necessary defense or in excess of measures necessary to apprehend an offender”, 125 “Intended minor bodily injury”, 128 “Negligent grievous bodily injury or negligent bodily injury of medium gravity”, 129 “Death threat”