In the theory of state and law, there is the concept of the stages of the commission of a crime. In total, there are three of them in the Russian Federation, depending on the degree of completion: preparation, attempt, and finished crime. In some countries, the emergence of intent is added to them. As a rule, liability for the latter is not provided.
Crime preparation
This is the activity of preparing for the commission of illegal actions, creating real conditions for their implementation. It can be expressed in finding means of committing a crime and tools (for example, making duplicate keys, acquiring weapons, etc.), finding partners in a crime (selection of performers, accomplices, etc.), conspiracy to commit a criminal offense, creating other conditions. As a rule, preparation is carried out for crimes with a material composition. Most often these are thefts, robberies and robberies. Criminal liability is provided only for crimes related to grave and especially grave.
Attempted crime and its types
The definition of this stage is given in Art. 30 of the Criminal Code. This is an activity aimed directly at committing a crime, but not completed to the end due to circumstances beyond the control of the guilty person. Preparation and attempted crime can only be carried out with direct intent. Negligence and indirect intent are completely excluded.
Attempts are divided into finished and unfinished. In the first case, the guilty person who committed the unlawful act considers that he has completed everything that he considered necessary, but the criminal result does not occur due to objective circumstances (for example, with the aim of committing a murder, a stab was stabbed in the abdomen, however, timely medical assistance helped to avoid death victim). In the second case, the offender believes that he did not take all the necessary actions (for example, the offender committed a house theft, but was discovered by the owners who called the police).
In practice, dividing into these species is very important, since the finished attempted crime is more dangerous and should be taken into account by the court.
A bad assassination attempt is also singled out, which is divided into 2 species. The first is an attempt on an unusable object. In this case, the culprit directs actions to a specific object, however, these actions do not encroach on him due to a mistake and do not cause harm (for example, a sniper fires a shot at a mannequin located in a chair by police officers and resembles in appearance the person whom he should kill )
The second type is an attempt on a crime with unsuitable means. To achieve his illegal goals, the guilty person uses objects that, due to their objective properties and qualities, cannot lead to the planned result (for example, a shot was shot at a person due to a malfunction of the revolver; a substance acquired as an acid in order to pour it on the victim’s face, it turned out to be a harmless solution, etc.). Unsuitable means also include evil eye, spoilage, conspiracies, etc., since objectively such actions do not constitute a public danger .
Attempted crime is a criminal offense. The actions of a person are qualified under the article of the Special Part of the Criminal Code and reference is made to Art. 14. At the same time, punishment beyond of the maximum punishment provided for in the sanction of the article cannot be imposed. In the Russian Federation, death penalty is not imposed for unfinished crimes.
Ended crime
At this stage, the perpetrator completed his criminal intent. Its actions (inaction) are subject to qualification in accordance with the norms contained in the Special Part of the Criminal Code.