Inter-branch differentiation of responsibility in the context of the introduction of a criminal offense

Introduction: In recent years, the issue of intersectoral differentiation of responsibility, in particular, criminal and administrative, is particularly acute, the border between which is practically absent due to the active implementation of administrative prejudice in the Criminal Law of the Russian Federation, the presence in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation of related compositions that differ only one sign. Materials and methods: the basis of the study was the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation, scientific research in the field of differentiation of responsibility. The methodological basis of the study was the general dialectical method of scientific knowledge, as well as the methods of logical deduction, cognitive methods and techniques of analysis, comparison, generalization and description. The results of the study: The article raises the problem of the content of the category of “criminal misconduct”, the idea of which has recently been discussed more and more often at the doctrinal and legislative levels. The study has been conducted with the use of dialectical methods of analysis and synthesis, and also comparative-legal, historic research, method of legal modeling. The objective was to establish logical and formal content of this category, to define positive and negative effects from its inclusion into the text of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the variant it was proposed by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. Findings and conclusions: The main tasks of the study are the analysis of the approaches to understanding of category “criminal misconduct”, concept of its legislative realization, finding drawbacks of legal constructions, proposed by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, prediction of social and political effects of suggested reform. It is noted that the proposed content of criminal misconduct makes it actually grounds for exemption from criminal liability with other criminal measures. It is argued that the best option to implement the idea of criminal misconduct is to enshrine it as an independent criminal category, which would include crimes that are classified as the least dangerous in the current Criminal Code, as well as the most dangerous administrative offences, which have “border” compositions in the criminal law.