The category "advantage" in modern criminal law of the Russian Federation

Introduction: the article is devoted to the study of "advantage" as a legal category used in modern Russian criminal legislation when describing the elements of crimes against the interests of the service, which has not received a legislative or other official definition. Materials and Methods: general and private academic methodology, historical and legal approaches, legal and technical analysis are applied. The regulatory material in the form of Soviet and modern criminal legislation, sources of higher judicial power was used. Results: it was found that the category "advantage" is used in four articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 1996 (Articles 201, 201.1, 202 and 289). It has been determined that, in relation to the provisions of Chapters 23 and 30 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, advantage is a sign of the objective and subjective aspects of crimes against the interests of the service, which is expressed in the form of a privilege, preponderance, superiority, exclusive right, priority, or other preference of the subject of the crime or another natural or legal person in comparison with any other subject. The category "advantage" is correlated with such criminal legal notions as "benefit", "privilege", "patronage". Discussion and Conclusions: it is reasonable to further streamline of the categorical apparatus used in the construction of crimes against the interests of the service.