Motives and Purposes of Crime and their Multiple Meaning

Abstract

All intentional crimes are committed either for certain motives or to achieve a certain goal. Indeed, identifying such motives and goals during the investigation of any criminal case initiated based on the fact of the commission of a deliberate crime is of great practical importance. Thus, it makes it possible, firstly, to establish the presence or absence of elements of a particular crime; secondly, to distinguish one crime from another; thirdly, to recognize the act as insignificant; fourthly, to assign a fair punishment to the guilty party, taking into account the circumstances mitigating and aggravating them, related to the motives and goals of the crime; fifthly, to assign a more lenient punishment than that provided for the given crime; sixthly, to determine the reasons for the commission of the crime and to characterize the personality of the person who committed it. Having grouped all the motives and goals of the crime, the author identifies and describes the following types: 1) those that influence their classification; 2) those that eliminate the social danger of the act; 3) those that are taken into account when assigning punishment; 4) those that characterize the reasons for committing the crime, as well as the personality of the person who committed it. In addition, some problematic issues of legislative and law enforcement nature are raised, namely, on legislator’s blurring of the boundaries between the motive and purpose of the crime; on the incorrect application by the courts of Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in terms of taking into account as exceptional circumstances those that are related to the purposes and motives of the crime.