THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF ARTICLES 116 AND 116.1 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Currently, the problem of domestic violence is quite urgent due to the annually increasing number of victims. Besides the increased attention from the legislation to this issue, the public itself is anxious about the existing situation: victims of domestic violence are treated disrespectfully as they either excessively draw attention to the situation that has arisen, or they are blamed for a late appeal to the law enforcement authorities. The paper defines the concept of domestic violence, specifies character traits of a person committing domestic violence as well as of a potential victim. Based on the analysis of litigation practice, the authors conclude on the absence of a unified approach to the definition of crime and the existence of gaps when punishing the third episode of a committed socially dangerous act. The analysis of data of the World Bank annual research “Women, Business and the Law” and the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs on domestic violence in the Russian Federation confirmed the existence of an acute problem, which remains unsolved on the legislative level for the rather long period. Within the current research, the authors propose introducing a new domestic violence body of evidence to the RF Criminal Code, whereby domestic violence should be considered willful damage for the life and health of a person being in the family, personal, or household relations. Specified innovations will allow significantly facilitating the work of law enforcement authorities and courts when classifying the acts and imposing a just punishment through the introduction of classified types of domestic violence when implementing the protection of rights of victims.