Culture and Criminalisation: Interdependence and Mutual Influence

Abstract

Introduction. The relationship between criminal law and culture does not often attract the attention of domestic specialists. Few of the available studies are devoted primarily to the protection of cultural values. Much less often we find works devoted to the socio-cultural conditioning of the criminal law prohibition. However, the integral complex of issues of the relationship between the criminalisation of socially dangerous acts and culture has not yet been presented as an independent object of study, although it is an important research field of criminal-political research. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The research is based on two basic theoretical concepts. Firstly the concept of criminalisation of socially dangerous acts as developed in criminal law science and secondly, the normative theory of culture. Research methods used were analytical, axiological, and systemic. Results. Criminalisation, being a cultural phenomenon in itself, is closely related to other cultural phenomena and processes, which makes it possible to consider criminal law as one of the means of supporting cultural norms. Processes of criminalisation are not only directly influenced by cultural stereotypes and political culture in terms of determining the content of a criminal law prohibition. Criminalisation also has the opposite effect on culture. In particular, it can be used to supplant cultural norms that do not correspond to modern ideas about an ideal society, to preserve the norms and rules that it needs at the moment, to establish cultural norms, conceivable as promising models of social structure, to block individual cultural innovations. Discussion and Conclusion. The study of the relationship between criminalisation and culture opens up broad prospects for discussing the quality of criminal law and normative modeling of socially approved behavior. It serves as additional evidence that crime is a social and cultural construct, that is, an act with relative danger. This is an assessment that can vary with the dynamics of cultural norms. It also proves the inadmissibility of the gross use of legal means (secondary elements of culture) for the formation and imposition of cultural standards.