Victimological Factors in Corruption Offences and Anti-Corruption Victimological Security

   The paper investigates victimological factors producing corruption victimization. The research methodology includes a dialectical method of scientific cognition, a systematic approach, analysis and synthesis as general scientific methods for understanding criminological and victimological concepts, private scientific methods: criminal statistical, sociological (survey of convicted respondents — officials), analysis of documents, etc. The empirical base is made up of the results of a criminological study conducted by the author in 2018–2020 as part of an interregional research team (Vladimir, Volgograd, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Syktyvkar), as well as criminal statistics data, materials of judicial practice. To solve the terminological problem, definitions of the concepts «corrupt crime», «corrupt behavior», «corrupt delinquency» are proposed. The author substantiates the application of a systematic methodology for the study of victimological factors as a structural element of corruption offences, their properties, conditions and relationships with other elements. The paper presents the results of a survey involving convicted respondents-officials, and a comparative analysis of judicial statistics data. The author gives a definition of victimological factors of a corruption crime, substantiates their unity with corruption-causing factors, which is manifested in victim-corruption and criminal-corruption behavior, the commission of a corruption crime. It is shown that the corruption crime is based on a corrupt transaction, its concept, characteristics, main elements, content, types are presented. The author shows that any of its subjects can become victims of a corrupt transaction: an official, his counterparty and an intermediary, while victimological factors, levels of victimization and types of victims are presented. It is concluded that anti-corruption victimological security should become a priority area of victimological prevention based on scientific (criminological) support. The expediency of creating (reviving) criminological laboratories on the basis of modern national research universities is argued.

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