Exercising positive legal responsibility

The subject of this research is the problem of understanding and content of exercising positive legal responsibility in the context of prevention of unlawful acts and stimulation of law-abiding behavior. The author aims to determine the role and functional purpose of law enforcement policy (within the framework of national security), its key trends and vectors, as well as the factors and conditions for implementation of legal responsibility for unlawful behavior and concomitant risks of its excessive application. Legal responsibility is viewed in accordance of its manifestations on the level of objective and subjective law, as well as systemic legal institution that incorporates normative, procedural and organizational subsystems. As a result of the conducted research, the author substantiates the need for prevention of offenses at the stage of emergence of social conflicts. Analysis is conducted on the positive experience of crime prevention in certain Asian countries and the factors of ineffective crime control policies in Russia and other countries. An original perspective on legal responsibility in legal right and law is presented. The author explicates the conceptual ideas of the preventive effect of responsibility at different stages of its materialization with regards to actual and potential offenders. The article takes into account peculiarities of the methods and means of external and internal influence of legal responsibility upon the behavior and consciousness of the subjects of law; outlines merits and flaws of the policy of preventing legal violations from the standpoints of its official objectives and tools; describes the structure of the system of legal responsibility and the advantage of its implementation in preventive activity of the law enforcement agencies and penal system of the Russian Federation.