Criminal liability for virtual "comparticipation" in the suicide of minors

In 2015-2017, a wave of exposure of the so-called “death groups” swept across the country - various communities on social networks and other Internet resources, where information was disseminated related to young people suicide, including, among other things, calls for the need for such behavior and recommendations for ways of committing suicide. This circumstance prompted the legislator to criminalize "complicity" in a person's suicide. The new norms of the criminal law raise questions even among the professional community, not to mention ordinary citizens. Aim. The work is devoted to the determination of the signs of the composition of crimes, consisting in the organization, incitement and complicity in the suicide of minors using the Internet. Materials and methods. In the course of the work, the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on liability for activities aimed at the suicide of others, the theory and practice of their application were studied using private scientific and general scientific methods traditional for criminal law research. Results. The current legislation establishes liability for inciting to commit suicide by persuasion, offers, bribery, deceit or otherwise in the absence of signs of incitement to suicide; for facilitating the commission of suicide by giving advice, directions, providing information, means or instruments for committing suicide, or removing obstacles to its commission or promising to hide the means or instruments for committing suicide and for organizing activities aimed at inciting to commit suicide by disseminating information about the methods of committing suicide or calls for committing suicide. Persuasion and suggestions are verbal forms of mental influence on a person, aimed at making him want to commit suicide. This may include, among other things, one-time statements (messages, comments, etc.) about the necessity, admissibility or possibility of committing suicide. Under such circumstances, the statements of persons who do not attach literal meaning to their words and do not want the onset of socially dangerous consequences can be qualified as a crime. Inducement to commit suicide may be committed in a manner other than those listed in the law. Such a way, for example, can be a playful form of suicide. Advice, instructions and giving information are essentially the same behavior, consisting in giving the person who has decided to inflict death on himself, information about how and where it is possible or better to do so. The difference between assistance and other forms of involvement in suicide lies in the fact that a person who assists the victim in causing his own death manifests his criminal activity after the latter has become determined to commit an act of suicide. Conclusion. It has been established that many features of the offenses under consideration are more than unobvious, some of them contribute to legal arbitrariness and need to be corrected.