Organized Crime under Anglo-Saxon Criminal Law: Features of Legislative Regulation

The paper is devoted to the comparative legal analysis of the group commission of a crime under Anglo-Saxon criminal law. The commission of a crime in conspiracy has an increased public danger and poses a serious threat to each state and society as a whole. Foreign lawmakers take different approaches to the definition of organized crime, taking into account its heterogeneous nature. The author studies the specificity of the legislative regulation of variations in criminal groupings in common law countries. A comparative analysis of the legislative regulation of organized crime allows us to note the positive experience that can be used to improve domestic criminal law governing forms of conspiracy and law enforcement.

The study notes that the criminal law of the Anglo-Saxon legal family is characterized by a low level of systematization of legislation and increased attention to the norms (decisions) expressed in the judicial precedent. At the same time, the existing criminal law standards governing the institution of conspiracy comply with international law. Some common law countries recognize a conspiracy between two or more persons for committing a crime as an organized crime group. It is important to note that this feature is also a characteristic of domestic criminal law. In accordance with Art. 32 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, a conspiracy is the intentional joint participation of two or more persons in the commission of an intentional crime. At the same time, a significant difference between the criminal law of the Anglo-Saxon legal family is the legislative consolidation of the qualitative and quantitative criteria of group formations (criminal association, organized criminal group, gang) depending on the degree of public danger of their crimes.

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