Social Conditionality of Criminal Liability for Persistent Failure to Perform Duties Related to the Care of a Child or a Person under Guardianship or in the Custody

Abstract

The article is devoted to the substantiation of establishing and maintaining criminal liability for persistent failure to perform duties related to the care of a child or a person under guardianship or in the custody. For this purpose the basic factors of social conditionality of criminal liability for the crime provided by Art. 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine was discovered and analyzed. These include social (socio-economic and socio-psychological), regulatory, criminological and institutional. It is established that socio-economic factors indicate the importance and necessity of the state to ensure the normal existence, development and upbringing of children and wards in an economically unstable situation in the country, inadequate material and living conditions, the progress of social orphanhood. It is researched that socio-psychological factors include the value of living of children and wards in the family environment, the difficulties of their socialization, the unfavorable psychological climate in the family. Regulatory factors are represented by a system of legal norms, which are enshrined at the constitutional, international legal, legislative and by-law levels. It has been found out that the social danger of persistent failure to perform duties related to the care of a child or a person under guardianship or in the custody is a main criminological factor. It is proved that the prevalence of the act, the validity of criminal measures to combat it and the high level of latency of this crime also determine the preservation of criminal liability for it. Institutional factors are reflected in the system of institutions of international and national (specialized institutions, law-enforcement agencies, non-governmental organizations) levels.