Economic crimes: review of changes in chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

The present study analyzes the content of the laws changing Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author draws attention to the fact that since the adoption of the Criminal Code, 60 laws have amended this Chapter. As a result of constant adjustments, not a single article from the 1996 version of the Code has remained in its original form. Both the dispositions of the articles of Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code and the sanctions were “improved”. A number of articles were restated several times. The number of economic crimes has increased by more than 80 %. Assessing these processes, the author points at the unstructured nature of the changes, inconsistency with respect to criminalization (decriminalization) of the economy, and therefore calls on the legislator to change the approach to reforming the Criminal Code in general and Chapter 22 in particular.