The research work comprehensively examines criminal law and criminological characteristics of threats or violence against a law enforcement officer (grounds for criminal liability under Art. 345 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, relevant law enforcement practice, level, structure, dynamics, latency, causes and conditions of these crimes, identity of the offender and the victim) on the basis of which a system of measures of general social and special criminological prevention of these torts has been developed.
According to results of study of criminal law characteristics, the provisions on qualifying and especially qualifying elements of threat or violence against a law enforcement officer, which are related to commission of these crimes in complicity, repeatedly, by an official, using firearms or other weapons, specially adapted or pre-prepared for infliction of bodily harm have been improved. Provisions on objective and subjective elements of crime under Art. 345 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (victims, forms of the objective part of the crime, elements of a common subject, motive, criteria for distinguishing from related criminal offenses), as well as proposals to improve the mechanism of criminal liability for threat or violence against law enforcement officers by optimizing the punishment system for the commission of such encroachments, as well as the reasonable application of criminal law and criminal procedural incentives have been further developed.
Within the criminological characteristics of threats or violence against law enforcement officers, the state of commission of crimes under Art. 345 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine for the period of 2013–2020, which covers information on their structure (in the vast majority of cases it is a task for law enforcement officers of minor injuries, much less – threats to such authorities), dynamics (growth by an average of 8.4% annually for the past 8 years), the share (during 2014-2020, these torts averaged 50.2% of encroachments on the authority of law enforcement agencies), as well as the type, causes and level of latency (mostly medium and high level of natural latency, which is usually due to reasons related to the reluctance of victims to report a crime or incorrect qualification of the perpetrator).
The system of determinants of crimes provided by Art. 345 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which includes socio-economic, socio-political, moral and psychological, medical, legal, organizational and managerial reasons and conditions and allows a differentiated and comprehensive approach to the formation of tactics and strategies to counter threats or violence against law enforcement, especially police, in the form of systems of adequate measures to prevent these socially dangerous acts has been formulated.
A modern criminological portrait of a person who commits threats or violence against a law enforcement officer in connection with the performance of his official duties (a 25-50 years old male, a citizen of Ukraine, a local resident of the city, with general secondary or vocational education) who is not officially employed, abuses alcohol and has previously committed an administrative or criminal offense, in some cases previously convicted). Typology of persons who commit threats or violence against law enforcement officers, covering such criteria as the resilience of antisocial orientation of offender, his relationship with victim, motive, purpose, type (method) of socially dangerous acts, experience of committing other criminal offenses, state of intoxication at time of committing a criminal offense, type of offense that precedes threats or violence against a law enforcement officer, as well as the number of subjects of crime and form of complicity has been improved.
