Legal Entity in Criminal Law: Purposes of Punishment

The current concept of criminal liability offers a very vague idea about the purposes of punishing a legal entity. This research featured the existing purposes of punishment, as well as contemporary theoretical foundations behind the criminal liability and sentencing of legal entities. The authors developed a theoretical understanding of the purposes of punishment specified in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to adapt them to the introduction of a criminal liability institution aimed specifically at legal entities. The research objective was to substantiate the possibility of implementing the existing purposes of criminal punishment in relation to legal entities. The study methods included formal-logical and comparative-legal methods of scientific cognition, as well as conventional analysis and synthesis. The authors believe that legal entities could face such purposes of punishment as the restoration of social justice, the correction of the offender, and general or specific prevention, depending on the activity of the legal entity. Legal entities involved in organized crime should be subjected to specific prevention. Legal entities that violate their statutory activities could be subjected to all the purposes of criminal punishment, which may lead to their eventual correction.