Punishment and the concept of restorative justice in criminal law

The relevance of the study is caused by the necessity for further increment of scientific knowledge on the issues of fighting crime by means of criminal law, as well as by the importance of understanding the essence of criminal punishment, which has a complex and contradictory nature manifested in the deprivation or restriction of the rights and freedoms of a person found guilty of committing a crime. The purpose of the work is to search for the most rational properties of punishment that can have a positive impact on quantitative and qualitative indicators of criminality. Causing adverse consequences to an offender is based on the practice of revenge, which has historically developed throughout the existence of human civilization, based on the irrational properties of the emotional sphere of a person. These properties of punishment inevitably penetrate beyond the penitentiary sphere and affect the entire society. Today, domestic criminal policy does not help reduce crime; on the contrary, by increasing the number of crimes and convicted for them (through the criminalization of acts) and worsening the quality indicators of criminality (through the widespread use of imprisonment contributing to the society dehumanization and the criminal sphere professionalization), it complicates the criminal situation. The humanization of “prison” relations could become a significant factor in the general preventive impact on criminality. The author believes that the efforts of the law enforcement system of the state should not be aimed at revenge, even if it receives ennobled connotations in the terms “retaliation”, “retribution”, but at compensating for the harm caused by the crime and at isolating an individual who, by virtue of the committed act, brings a public danger. This approach is inevitably associated with the humanization of criminal legal relations and the rationalization of punishment, which are necessary for society no less than for individuals punished for committing crimes.