Suchergebnisse

Translated from Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, no. 12, 1969.

The fundamental concern is to find the adequate rational justification in the distinction made by the law between criminal wrongs & noncriminal wrongs. The issue is not whether criminals should be punished in the usual sense; the proposal for the equalization of the penalties for attempted crimes & successful crimes is independent of the question of whether in order to do this the penalties for one should be raised or lowered in order to match those of the other. Current practice generally treats attempted crimes in a more lenient way than successful crimes. Some questions are asked, such as: What is essentially at stake in distinguishing a criminal from a noncriminal act? The jurisprudents have typically answered: (1) the distinguishing characteristics of acts defined as criminal is that they are public or social harms; (2) no single distinguishing principle can be found for the entire range of criminal acts. Conclusions are conflicting: If an attempt causes less harm than a completed crime then, it would follow, that an attempt could or should be punished less severely than a successful crime. This sort of argument will not suffice. There must be a distinction between attempts as well as between attempts & successful crimes. Some attempts do much more social damage than others, however, distinctions cannot be based entirely on this; equal protection under law must be kept in mind. Reform of theory of law of crimes & consequently the reform of the law of criminal attempt clearly are indicated as part of a continuing process of the rationalizing of criminal law. S. Cummings.