On Forms of Non-Physical (Psychological) Violence in the Criminal Legislation of Russia

The article is devoted to the study of forms of non-physical violence stated in the articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The main objective is to study the issues of representing the forms of non-physical violence in criminal law, aimed at developing recommendations for improving criminal law to increase its effectiveness. The authors analyzed the provisions of the criminal legislation of Russia and the materials of judicial investigative practice, which made it possible to identify a number of shortcomings. The results led to the conclusion that the most common forms of non-physical violence are: threat, coercion, blackmail, bullying and insult. According to the authors, cheating cannot be related to the variety of violence since the phenomenon itself does not cause moral suffering to the victim, hence, a crime with this attribute is not violent. In addition, the authors conclude that not all forms of non-physical violence are reflected in the criminal law. The authors propose to consolidate the use of hypnosis as a qualifying attribute in some elements of the crime, as this will allow to resolve a number of qualification problems, and will also contribute to the correct particularisation and differentiation of punishments.

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