2. Characteristics of criminal groups of minors by age

The study revealed criminal groups:
1) only from minors;
2) with the participation of an adult (adults) in the group of minors;
3) with the participation of a minor (minors) in a criminal group of adults (see Figure 3.2).
However, with sufficient accuracy to determine the type of group depending on the age of its members is very difficult for several reasons. Firstly, juvenile offenders are not inclined to spread about the composition of their group and especially about the role of adults in its activities. This is strictly prohibited by the rules and regulations of the criminal subculture. Secondly, adults especially do not advertise their connection with a criminal group of adolescents, for the sake of security, leading its criminal activities from a certain distance. In a number of regions, criminal groups are built according to a kind of party-Komsomol-Pioneer-Oktyabryat principle. So, some Kazan "winders" did not include youngsters and teenagers aged 8-11 years. These guys were united into independent groups that make up the reserve of this “winder”, which was led by one of the younger members of the “winder” (a kind of chairman of the October-October “asterisk”). At the same time, the “winder”, which combines 11–15-year-old minors, was led by a “pioneer esteem” - one of the members of a juvenile criminal group whose branch was this “winder” (the so-called “author”). A youthful crime


Scheme 3.2
Classification of criminal groups by age


A representative of the adult mafia structure led the group (15-17 years old) (see diagram 3.3).
Thus, with an increase in the degree of organization and professionalization of crime, it is not uncommon for this criminal group of minors to be just a “branch” “branch” of a more powerful criminal group directing its activities, which teenagers and young men sometimes do not realize. Therefore, it is often possible to learn about the approximate age structure of a group retrospectively only when studying a criminal case.
The overall picture can be made if we consider that in the territory of Russia there are more than 46.3 thousand criminal formations with varying degrees of organization, in which


Scheme 3.3
The organization of criminal groups of minors by age


Only the leaders and the most active participants are about 18-20 thousand. Almost every fourth of them has inter-regional, and almost 5 percent - international relations1, But a significant part of such groups has its branches in the form of teenage and youth criminal gangs, replenishing groups of adult criminals frames.
In addition, each criminal group of minors has its own varieties, depending on the division of its members by age. For example, there are criminal groups of juveniles of the same age (11–14 years old or 15–17 years old) and uneven (12–17 years old or even 9–17 years old) composition. More often than not, criminal groups of the same age (older adolescents or young men) specialize in specific types of crime, since the basis of their education and functioning

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1 Crime Chronicle. 1993. No. 6, p. 12.
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There is a certain age-related criminal interest (booty, clothes, currency, sex, alcohol, etc.). The proximity of ages (for example, 11-14 years old or 15-17 years old) favors the formation of common interests, attitudes, behaviors, leisure activities, etc. This ensures the rapid formation of criminal activity and increases criminal mobility. Here, the basis of self-affirmation of the individual in the group are personal, psychological and physical qualities.
Another thing is the criminal group of different age groups, the typical of which are in Moscow "Luber", "Ivanteevskie" and others. Such a group serves as a kind of school for preparing adolescents for criminal activities.
As noted above, often single-age criminal groups are included as independent “branches” (“branches”) in a more powerful criminal group, which is run by a large mafia who has a cover in the official structure represented by a corrupt official. Farmers' groups are typical in this respect (see Scheme 3.4).
The lowest hierarchical level is occupied by a group of 9–14-year-old adolescents - “gamshchiki” - from the word “din” (noise);


Scheme 3.4
The structure of the criminal group Fartsovschiki


thinking begging from foreigners. Above is a group of "irons" - active businessmen of adolescence (over 16 years old), leading deals with foreigners on certain sections of streets and squares of cities ("points", "squares", "routes"). Even higher are the "bulls" - representatives of the "legal" racketeering (persons aged 20-27 years), collecting tribute from "gamshchiki" and "irons", ensuring the safety of their fishing and feeding the police. The “roofs” of the criminal business, connected with the representatives of the militia or being its representatives and controlling the whole area of ​​the fartsovka, serve as a “roof” to them.
Representatives of the "wild" racketeering ("stray", "visiting") criminal groups, arriving from other cities (microdistricts) and illegally collecting "tribute" from the "irons" and "gamshchikov", as well as the "irregulars" "(over 16 years old) conducting transactions with foreigners and not paying tribute to" bulls "in charge of this territory.
Among juvenile criminal groups with adults, the most typical are groups in which one member (less often two) is an adult. This is usually a person who has recently reached the age of majority, i.e. age 18-20 years. The reasons for the inclusion of this adult in a criminal group of minors are very diverse. Often this person has reached the age of majority in this group, having gone through all the steps of “growth”, as in Kazan “winders”, Almaty “gangs”. Such persons are referred to in criminal jargon as "old men", in contrast to those who lead a criminal group of persons who have not reached the age of majority (the latter are called "elders"). Often, adults who have returned from places of detention specifically create a criminal group of minors, as they say, “for themselves,” in which they assert themselves as leaders, exploiting adolescents and youths. There are groups created by adults who have broken away from "their" criminal group of adults (having failed to assert themselves there and fulfill their claims to leadership, thus taking revenge for their defeat). It also happens that a group of teenagers creates an adult, whose gang turned out to be arrested and is serving a sentence, and for some reason he escaped arrest. In this case, the group he needs for the extraction of funds for "heating" of his "lads" in the colony. Very often, an adult recidivist creates a criminal group of teenagers "for excuse", i.e. to avoid responsibility for the crimes committed by him, using the age characteristics of a teenager. Thus, in Primorye, adult criminals use children for transporting raw materials, which are less attractive for the attention of the police, which had never happened before1.
However, there may be other factors besides the criminal installations of an adult that encourage him to create a juvenile criminal group, for example, acquaintance with the group at the place of residence, use of teenagers' tendency toward asocial behavior, craving for alcohol, drugs, etc.
In all cases it is necessary to distinguish:
a) criminal groups of minors created by the recidivist himself in order to achieve the criminal goals that he clearly defined and the implementation of his program;
b) groups of minors who spontaneously emerged as criminal and used by an adult criminal for their criminal purposes.
Criminal groups of adults with a minor. Adults include in their criminal group a minor with defined clearly defined goals to achieve high crime performance. They need a minor as an instrument of criminal craft. Here are the most common cases of minor use: climb through the window when burglary; lure the victim to the desired criminal situation; play the role of a messenger, a liaison, a signalman. Let us give some examples. Minor Katya M. involved the victim in a criminal situation. In the evening, she turned to a well-dressed passerby, asking her to escort her to the house entrance, since she alone was afraid to go into the dark. He escorted her, and a group of adult robbers waited for him near the entrance. Another case. Valya T. played the role of a panel prostitute. She took the man who "took off" her "to herself" to the apartment (her parents allegedly were on vacation), where he was met by adult criminals who played the role of her suddenly returned parents and relatives. As a teenager, Sasha D. was used by the group to penetrate the apartment through a window, lowering him on a rope from the roof of the house to the desired floor or balcony. Anatoly R. was needed for “ringing” when committing the apartment thefts, called “five minutes” in the jargon, to reveal the absence of owners

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Matveeva E. Drug industry: Offensive on Primorye // Moscow News. 1993, No. 26.

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houses. In Moscow, an organized group of car thieves trained two 12-year-olds to drive a car and used them to drive out their favorite “cars” from their parking lot to the nearest turn to another street. In all these cases, adult criminals made the most of the age and physical characteristics of adolescents. Indeed, a girl in the evening can naturally be afraid when passing through an unlit courtyard. And how can you refuse her help? For a lustful adult, an underage prostitute is a find "young and cheap." And how can a sex maniac not take advantage of this? Teenager compared with adults smaller in size and weight. It is easier for him to climb through the window, and even lower it from the roof to the desired floor is much easier than an adult. A teenager calling home apartments is less suspicious than adults. It is easier for the 12-year-olds hijacking a car to talk about taking the car "for a while to drive." Moreover, due to the small age, they are not threatened with criminal punishment, etc.
In modern conditions of the growth of armed crime, adult criminals are increasingly using adolescents for transporting them through the protected lines of weapons, ammunition, especially in areas of interethnic conflict, since minors are less attracted to the attention of law enforcement agencies, and even to carry out terrorist acts. For example, for a certain amount of money, adolescents are instructed to attach a magnetic mine to the bottom of a victim’s car. The press describes a case where adult criminals used a group of preschool children to transport drugs into the stomach, forcing them to swallow special capsules, and on arrival at the place gave them a laxative so that the capsules came out with excrement.
The degree of prevalence of the considered criminal age groups is different not only in the total number of juvenile delinquencies, but also by region. The most common criminal groups are only from minors (age and age composition). However, in a number of regions in many groups of minors adults also participate in crimes. Regional variations here are very significant - from 10-12% to 75%. The same picture is observed with adult criminal groups.

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1 Goryachev S. There was a gang on the road // Moscow news. 1996 March 4th.
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lyh, which include in its composition of the minor (minors). So, the gang of L adova, which committed many assaults, on the account of which 8 murders were revealed, included in its structure "one minor, who was run errands by criminals" 1.
Each of these types of groups has its own socio-psychological characteristics and is differently qualified by law. Thus, the activity of an adult in a criminal group of minors and the involvement of minors in a criminal group of adults is an aggravating circumstance for adults and more severely punished. Usually, in this case, the main criminal activity of adults has two associated elements of the crime:
1) incitement of minors to commit a crime or involvement of minors to participate in a crime;
2) bringing a minor to a state of alcoholic intoxication, since group criminal activity is often preceded by the use of alcohol or it is accompanied and terminated by alcoholic excesses.
Among the adults involved in the commission of group crimes together with minors, more than 70% are:
1) released from corrective labor institutions (mainly from educational and labor colonies);
2) conditionally convicted (released) with the obligatory involvement in productive labor;
3) persons who have received a stay of execution of the sentence;
4) persons released from special schools upon reaching the age of majority.
The study shows that the majority of adults involved in criminal activities with minors have only recently reached the age of majority and are close in age (1–3 years of difference) to minors. However, in 22.3% of cases the difference in the age of minors and adult participants in group crimes reached 8-10 years. Their average age exceeded the average age of particularly dangerous repeat offenders. This category of adults involved juveniles, as a rule, into professional, qualified, carefully prepared and conspired criminal activity. Possessing significant criminal experience

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Dubov D. Miserable // Shield and Sword. 1996, No. 16.
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long criminal experience (8-14 years), having mastered the norms and traditions of the criminal environment, they especially intensively attach minors to the criminal lifestyle. One of the peculiarities of these adults is that most of them for crimes committed were consistently placed in special schools, other correctional institutions and the IC. Consequently, compulsory re-education measures and criminal penalties in the form of deprivation of liberty did not have the necessary educational and correcting effect on them; they not only failed to correct, but learned all the social and negative things that they faced during a long time in the midst of criminals and in conditions of social isolation. They are characterized by an active illegal position and are the main factor of mutual criminalization in the group of minors.
Encourage adult criminals to create a criminal group of minors with different motives. Many of them commit crimes alone "inconveniently", "unprofitable", "uninteresting". Other adolescent group is needed, as noted, and for self-affirmation, for “courage”, for demonstrating imaginary superiority over others. A group is also an additional physical strength in the struggle and rivalry with other groups for territory, for power; this is psychological support; this is the audience, the social field, where self-affirmation takes place. Therefore, freeing themselves from the colony, repeat offenders seek to restore "their" former group. However, this is often not possible for various reasons (the group is divided or reoriented by the internal affairs bodies, a new leader appeared in it, surpassing the former in its personal qualities, the group disintegrated for natural reasons, etc.).
Creating a new criminal group, repeat offenders usually speculate on adolescent romance. Taught in their own experience, they strive to build their relations with the group in such a way as to protect themselves as much as possible from criminal prosecution. The most common way with this is organizational activity and incitement. An adult criminal, as a rule, develops a plan for committing a crime, provides for methods of hiding, selling stolen and stolen goods, instructs a group on how to commit a crime. He himself does not participate directly at the crime scene. The team at the crime scene is led by one of his entourage, the “watchman.” In the event of failure, the youngest (most often under the age of criminal responsibility) or a minor with a mental retardation, who is obliged by the group to take responsibility for corporate solidarity, are substituted for law enforcement agencies “for excuses”. This largely explains the facts of evasion of a significant part of adult criminals from criminal responsibility.
Adult members of a criminal group are "profitable" to include a minor in their criminal group (the teenager is assigned to perform tasks that are least likely to attract the attention of law enforcement agencies than if the task was performed by an adult; the teenager is inclined to take responsibility for the crime committed in case of failure of the group, manipulating a sense of "duty", "honor", etc., a teenager is necessary for adult criminals as an errand boy). Often, minors are used to store weapons of crime, all looted and for other purposes. For example, the gang leader M. Oblyseev in the city of Kolomna acted as follows: "Using a youngster, a fool, Vitalik Brelov, who was engaged in the gym of the village of Pervomaysky,turned this rare object in our time into a predatory hangout ... They made heavy rubber truncheons and robber masks out of hard rubber ... They stole it, stolen, developed plans for the next attacks ... practiced methods of capture and strangulation ". An adult leader, including a teenager in other far-reaching goals - sometimes gradual renewal of the group at the expense of more obedient adolescents and the removal of obstinate individuals claiming leadership in the group — and in this case quite often adults leave the criminal responsibility, and pay for the law for all accounts for minors.including the adolescent in his group, sometimes pursuing other far-reaching goals - the gradual renewal of the group at the expense of more obedient adolescents and the removal of obstinate individuals who claim to be the leader in the group. And in this case, adults often go away from criminal liability, and the minor has to pay for everything before the law.including the adolescent in his group, sometimes pursuing other far-reaching goals - the gradual renewal of the group at the expense of more obedient adolescents and the removal of obstinate individuals who claim to be leaders in the group. And in this case, adults often go away from criminal liability, and the minor has to pay for everything before the law.
How can one explain the manifested ease of involving a minor in a criminal group of adults, his desire to enter it? The main reason is the psychological isolation of a teenager in his micro habitat and the need to compensate for it. The motivating motives may be a false sense of adulthood, a desire to assert themselves or to gain psychological protection, and to have patronage, so that later through adult patrons they can influence the teenage microenvironment.

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1 Sokolov B. "Gentlemen of Fortune": a chronicle of burglaries // Moscow news. 1996, April 27th.
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You can, of course, blame the police, the court, the prosecutor’s office, who “didn’t inspect” who pushed the group of students to the crime. But after all, the minor should fall into the sphere of law enforcement activity only when he committed an offense, the crime and his asocial behavior has gone too far. The law here is exact and strict. School teachers, practical psychologists, and engineering and pedagogical staff of schools, on the contrary, “see” their students every day. It is their direct duty "to lead students' interpersonal relations, to know with whom and how they communicate and make friends; who has a bad influence on adolescents, and stop them in time" 1. In the meantime, at the request of the teaching staff of schools and colleges, adults who have involved minors in criminal activities,prosecuted extremely rarely. However, it is not enough to identify adult instigators and take timely measures to them that are prescribed by law. It is also necessary to replace this adult negative influence with an adult, but with an emotionally positive effect, especially during the student’s leisure time. This is one of the important conditions for the prevention of juvenile gang crime. It is not about influence in classes and in circles, patronage and mentoring (which disappeared from the practice of schools and vocational schools), but about influence in the process of interpersonal communication. Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.However, it is not enough to identify adult instigators and take timely measures to them that are prescribed by law. It is also necessary to replace this adult negative influence with an adult, but with an emotionally positive effect, especially during the student’s leisure time. This is one of the important conditions for the prevention of juvenile gang crime. It is not about influence in classes and in circles, patronage and mentoring (which disappeared from the practice of schools and vocational schools), but about influence in the process of interpersonal communication. Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.However, it is not enough to identify adult instigators and take timely measures to them that are prescribed by law. It is also necessary to replace this adult negative influence with an adult, but with an emotionally positive effect, especially during the student’s leisure time. This is one of the important conditions for the prevention of juvenile gang crime. It is not about influence in classes and in circles, patronage and mentoring (which disappeared from the practice of schools and vocational schools), but about influence in the process of interpersonal communication. Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.but emotionally positive influence, especially in the student’s leisure time. This is one of the important conditions for the prevention of juvenile gang crime. It is not about influence in classes and in circles, patronage and mentoring (which disappeared from the practice of schools and vocational schools), but about influence in the process of interpersonal communication. Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.but emotionally positive influence, especially in the student’s leisure time. This is one of the important conditions for the prevention of juvenile gang crime. It is not about influence in classes and in circles, patronage and mentoring (which disappeared from the practice of schools and vocational schools), but about influence in the process of interpersonal communication. Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.Every minor must have an adult friend. However, it turns out that adults do not know "what to talk with them, how to find a confidential tone so that adolescents respond" 2.