To the question of improving the norms on criminal responsibility for punishment to suicidal behavior

Introduction: The object of study in this article consists of the provisions of the Russian criminal legislation on combating incitement to suicide and proposed changes on introduction of new norms establishing liability for inducement to suicide. The research urgency is caused by the need for effective criminal and legal counteraction to acts aimed at the formation of suicidal intentions of socially vulnerable persons, including minors. Without denying the need to strengthen this opposition, the author considers it necessary to adopt a critical approach to the proposed changes in the criminal law, which can cause more harm than good. Method and Methodology: method of systemic analysis, comparative legal, systematic, formal-logical, specially-legal, methods of analysis, synthesis, analogy and other methods of scientific cognition. Results: scientific novelty of the study consists in the analysis of Article 110.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which establishes responsibility for the incitement to suicide. On the basis of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the term ‘‘declination’’ should be more correctly considered as an integral element of the concept of ‘‘finishing’’, in connection with which the introduction of a new rule may complicate the criminal legal qualification of the acts connected with suicide. Discussion and Conclusions: the author believes that it is more appropriate to criminalize all the acts connected with suicide (inducement, assistance and completion) within the framework of one article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, consistently delineating the nature and degree of public danger of these acts.