Criminal identity of juvenile offenders in the context of modern research

The article deals with the problems of studying criminal identity, describes the state of scientific ideas about its essence. The relevance is justified by the development of the information space, the lack of effective control over its content, leading to the involvement of young people in antisocial acts and an increase in the number of serious and especially serious crimes committed by youth in 2022. The purpose of the article is to study criminal identity as a psychological marker of the involvement of minors in criminal groups and communities.For research purposes, criminal identity is defined as the result of the subject’s awareness of belonging to a social category (group) of criminals. It is shown that criminal identity includes cognitive and emotional components that determine the attitude of the subject to himself, others and society as a whole. The ideas of domestic researchers about criminal identity are summarized.It is shown that criminal identity includes cognitive and emotional components that determine the attitude of the subject to himself, others and society as a whole. The ideas of domestic researchers about criminal identity are summarized. The assessment of foreign approaches to the analysis of criminal identity is carried out, the factors and conditions for its formation, the possibilities of application for the prevention and counteraction of crimes are considered. Sociological, socio-psychological and psychological approaches are described. It is concluded that it is necessary to overcome the methodological diversity of ideas about criminal identity, to carry out its conceptualization, to determine its structure and characteristics. The directions of scientific-theoretical and empirical work on the development of the theory of criminal identity and the operationalization of its provisions are determined.