DISCIPLINARY OFFENSES OF CONVICTS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of issues of legal nature, definition of types and classification of disciplinary offenses (violations of the established order of punishment). It was found that due attention was not paid to the study of these issues, therefore the degree of development of this issue cannot be considered sufficient. It is emphasized that the domestic criminal law does not contain an exhaustive list of acts that can be recognized as disciplinary offenses of convicts, as required by the relevant provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine and some international legal acts in the field of treatment of convicts. The author notes that only in Article 133 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine does the legislator provide for specific forms of illegal behavior of convicts, which are considered as independent disciplinary offenses, expressed in certain actions that have a significant degree of social harm, and the commission of which significantly affects the established order of execution and serving a sentence, the process of correction of convicts, but defines them as «a malicious violation of the established order of serving a sentence.» The imperfection of this concept is emphasized, since malice, according to the author, contains both a qualitative and a quantitative characteristic of the act. Attention is drawn to the absence of a single, universal concept of disciplinary offense for all convicts and a corresponding norm that would recognize the composition of a disciplinary offense as a basis for disciplinary responsibility of the convicted person in the criminal law. In order to develop a unified approach to solving the issue of bringing convicts to disciplinary responsibility, the author proposes to specify as much as possible the types of actions (violations of the established procedure for serving punishment), which should be recognized as disciplinary offenses of convicts and to determine the appropriate penalties for their commission. The author's classification of disciplinary offenses is also proposed, depending on the degree of their social harmfulness, as a material feature inherent in a disciplinary offense, into three types: harmless, harmful and especially harmful offenses. The expediency of introducing the concept of «recidivism of harmless misdemeanors» is substantiated and its definition is given. It is pointed out the feasibility of supplementing the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine with an appropriate norm that would provide for and define the concept of «minor misdemeanor», which is very often used by both academics and practitioners, to provide an appropriate characterization of this or that act of the convicted person, which does not constitute social harm and its commission did not cause and could not cause significant damage to the person or the institution serving the sentence.