Sanctions for violent offences against the sexual integrity of minors: issues of improvement

Despite the fact that the original version of the Criminal Code provided for very severe penalties for violent crimes against the sexual inviolability of minors, the penalties were repeatedly changed by the legislator to be stricter and were finally formed in their current form in 2012. Since that time, the minimum penalty for rape and violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a young child (article 131, paragraph 4, and article 132, paragraph 4, of the Criminal Code) has been twelve years' deprivation of liberty and the maximum penalty has been twenty years. Under article 131, paragraph 5, and article 132, paragraph 5, of the Criminal Code, life imprisonment may be imposed for the above offences in cases of special recidivism. However, The analysis of the dynamics of the content of sanctions for violent crimes against the sexual inviolability of minors has shown that there is little room for increasing legislative penalisation through changes in sanctions. Moreover, there is a fragmented excessive repressiveness of sanctions, which manifests itself in their inconsistency with sanctions for other especially grave crimes against the person, in particular, murder. The enhancement of liability may only be done by means of expansion of the range of acts foreseen by parts 5 of article 131 and 5 of article 132 of the Criminal Code of the RF, at the expense of some highly dangerous varieties of crimes against sexual inviolability of minors, which was done with the adoption of the Federal Law No. 3-FZ of 28 January, 2022. However, the application of this method requires special caution and a balanced assessment of the degree of public danger of specific varieties of the crimes in question. In general, any amendments aimed at legally increasing the criminal punishment for these crimes should be preceded by the separation of these crimes under Art. 132 and 132 of the Criminal Code should be separated from all other types of sexual crimes, including crimes against minors, which are only conditionally equivalent to violent crimes according to the note to Article 131 of the Russian Criminal Code. New criminal legislation would need to address the apparent lack of harmonisation of sanctions for violent crimes against the sexual inviolability of minors with sanctions for other crimes against the person. At present the shortcomings of the sanctions related to their incomplete correspondence to the degree of public danger of the acts reflected in the dispositions are to some extent mitigated by the judicial practice. The study of practical penalisation of the crimes in question does not confirm the need for further legislative strengthening of liability for them, as the courts do not make full use of the repressive potential of the available sanctions. Life imprisonment under part 5 of article 131 and part 5 of article 132 of the Criminal Code is imposed in single cases; while imposing punishment under part 4 and part 5 of article 132 of the Criminal Code, art. 64 and 73 of the Criminal Code. The author declares no conflicts of interests.