Prevention of environmental crimes using environmental criminology methods (victimological aspect)

The article discusses the issues of preventing environmental crimes by influencing the behavior of all groups of victims (individuals, legal entities, the population of a certain area or an entire region, etc.). It is noted that determining the figure of the victim causes significant difficulties in the criminal legal and criminal procedural sense, and in some cases it simply does not exist (“crimes without victims”). This leads to the fact that there is no one to initiate the initiation and investigation of such environmental crimes, to compensate for damage caused to the natural environment, and to solve other problems of criminal law (Article 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The article analyzes new approaches to the concept of the victim in Western and domestic criminology, for example, the recognition as such of specially protected natural areas, natural monuments, unique natural objects, etc.