Institute of punishment in Russian criminal law: essence, history of formation

The problems associated with the functioning of the institution of punishment in the criminal law of the Russian Federation at the present stage require careful research, legal regulation and scientific justification in order not only to study the experience of previous historical aspects of the implementation of this phenomenon, but to realize its main purpose – to bring the perpetrators to justice, to deserved punishment, observing the requirements of fair retribution. Legislative acts of the pre-revolutionary era did not contain the concept of punishment, but the list of punishment types was quite wide. The process of theoretical normative provisions and generalization of judicial practice of criminal law formation resulted in the concept of punishment as a measure of coercion applied by the state on the basis of a court sentence and on the basis of the law to persons found guilty of a criminal act and containing an expression of a negative assessment of criminal activity. At the present time, taking into account the historical conditions, observing multidirectional trends in order to improve the criminal punishment system development efficiency, it is necessary to take into account the set of new scientific achievements in this field, judicial practice and many other factors that will also help the courts to adequately apply the existing arsenal of penalties. The criminal law Institute of punishment should solve the leading task, the implementation of the criminal responsibility justice, expressed in the imposition of punishment corresponding to the nature and degree of social danger of the committed act, as well as the personality of the perpetrator and objectively meeting the goals established by law. In this case, it acts as a powerful, deterrent, preventive factor.