The dissertation is devoted to the criminological study of domestic violence and its negative development trends in the conditions of the Kharkiv region, the development of new and specification of existing measures of general social and special criminological prevention and countermeasures based on the identified determining factors that cause the emergence and development of this criminal phenomenon.
The dissertation provides a description of the socio-economic and other characteristics of the Kharkiv region, which illustrate the possibility of studying the determinants of domestic violence on the example of the Kharkiv region and applying the results of the study to the entire country, since its features are manifested in almost every settlement of Ukraine. A significant increase in the number of families living without official registration of marriage relations and an increase in the number of divorces in the territory of the Kharkiv region reinforces the postulates of an irresponsible attitude towards family obligations. Unemployment negatively affects family relations. Poverty, the inability to provide one's children with basic necessities are conflict-causing factors that contribute to the perpetration of domestic violence in the region and the entire country. Sufficiently stable indicators of violent crime and the low degree of detection of offenders once again confirm the need to develop prevention and countermeasures based on the materials of the Kharkiv region.
When investigating the state of domestic violence in the Kharkiv region, the following features were highlighted. During the period 2016 - 2021, the number of registered cases of domestic violence almost doubled. In our opinion, the constant growth of the dynamics of domestic violence in the Kharkiv region and Ukraine is a natural consequence of the criminalization of domestic violence, the creation of specialized units within the National Police of Ukraine and quarantine restrictions introduced as a result of the acute respiratory disease pandemic COVID-19. In 2020, a trend towards an increase in the number of persons convicted of criminal offenses related to family violence was noted in the Kharkiv region.
There is a combination of two forms of domestic violence and it was committed in the evening and at night in most investigated criminal cases. It was found that almost half of the cases of domestic violence were classified as a misdemeanor, which is provided for in Art. 125 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine «Intentional minor bodily injury» and only 4% under special Art. 1261 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine «Domestic violence». Domestic violence in the Kharkiv region is characterized by an average level of latency.
The dissertation provides a typical portrait of the abuser - he is a male person, aged 35 to 39, with a secondary education, who mostly does not have a permanent job, or who has a temporary job, is in an official or de facto marital relationship, and who committed domestic violence.
The system of determinants of domestic violence in the Kharkiv region was studied at three levels: macro level, meso level and micro level (individual level). At the macro level, the perpetration of domestic violence is facilitated by: socio-economic instability in the state; active armed conflicts; sufficiently high level of unemployment in the region; stereotypical patriarchal social beliefs and weak pace of establishing gender equality. The meso level is represented by: the negative impact of deviant behavior in the abuser’s parental family on the formation of his personality; lack of own housing and the need to get along in the same room with other families; the hostile attitude of parents towards their child's couple and their systematic interference in the lives of spouses; alcohol / drug addiction of family members. The individual level includes: aggressiveness and hot-tempered nature of the abuser; the consequences of the influence of previous convictions of convicts and their stay for a certain time in institutions for the execution of punishments; underestimated or overestimated self-esteem of the abuser and, as a result, jealousy on his part and the desire to assert himself at the expense of a weaker loved one.
Based on the results of the research, a set of measures for general social prevention of domestic violence is presented, which are aimed at: stabilizing the socio-economic situation of the region by reducing the level of unemployment and alcoholism of the population; improving the legal culture of society; ensuring the proper resocialization of persons released from prisons and implementing various forms of state and regional support for the institution of the family.
Measures of special criminological prevention of domestic violence were developed taking into account a deterministic set of factors in three directions: criminological prophylactic measures, prevention and termination of criminal offenses.
