5. Characteristics of the degree of organization and cohesion of criminal groups

Educational and preventive work cannot be built without taking into account the degree of organization and solidarity of criminal groups, their focus on certain types of criminal activity, which depends on the severity of group attitudes.
First of all, you can identify the type of groups of minors on the verge of law-abiding behavior. These are ordinary teenage groups that are not properly controlled by adults; they have no purpose to violate legal prohibitions. They represent a variant of the age opposition to adults (according to the mechanism of age emancipation - “to be and appear as adults”). In these groups, the main type of joint activity is leisure time; in the course of this activity, rivalry in the demonstration of prestigious (from the point of view of group norms) personality traits (courage, heroism, endurance, resourcefulness, ingenuity, etc.) stimulate adolescents to commit socially risky actions. Microenvironmental norms they do not disagree with law-abiding behavior. Therefore, these groups usually commit crimes due to levity, impulsively, emotionally. It is enough to establish proper control over this group, to include it in socially useful activities, circle and sectional work - and the task of preventing crime will be solved.
The second type includes groups in which the crime, though committed by chance, but micro-environmental norms disagree with law-abiding installations, without reaching the level of criminal orientation. These are, as a rule, clans of the “street tribe” (adolescents of extreme neglect, vagabonds, repetitioners, prone to drinking). In such groups, adolescents are forced out of schools, vocational schools, not satisfied with their educational activities and their position in the official system of team relations. According to S.A., Belicheva, only 8% of juvenile offenders were satisfied with their relations with teachers and peers-students, 16.7% were in an isolated position in the educational team. Up to 60% of juvenile delinquents come from dysfunctional families whose need for family communication was unmet 1. Asocial group replaces family and school. The desire to be accepted, to get approval, makes a teenager, by a risky asocial act, seek the disposition of the group to accept him. Fear of exile leads to avoid apparent discrepancies with the norms of the group. Therefore, in such a group, a minor without any difficulties is criminalized. It requires more serious preventive work, including overcoming neglect, repetition, fighting drunkenness, changing interpersonal relations in the educational team, reorienting the norms and attitudes of the group.
The third type includes groups in which microenvironmental norms are focused on violation of legal prohibitions. The game attitude towards attitudes and actions, transferred from the criminal subculture to the motivation of group behavior, is most noticeable when studying group norms, values, which clearly define the attitude to “friends” and “strangers”. These groups strictly protect the "inviolability of their territory" from the invasion of "outsiders", which is often accompanied by various types of aggressive behavior, their empty pastime is accompanied by the use of alcohol, gambling "under interest" according to their standards of "fair play". Teenagers strive to make and wear brass knuckles, finks, and now firearms. When such a group falls out of the sight of law enforcement agencies, it has a desire to transfer the mores existing in it to the whole society. This is manifested in unprovoked aggression to the older, weak, "outsiders."
According to A.I. Dolgova, who studied the social situations of the development of the personality of juvenile offenders, in criminogenic groups only 46% of their members agree with group settings, another 46% agree only with some

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1 See: S.A. Belicheva Prestige and asocial behavior of minors. Abstract on the search. Degree PhD psychol. sciences. L., LSU, 1977.
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group solutions, 8% hold to their point of view1.
Minors convicted of criminal offenses for criminal offenses agree only in 30% of cases with group decisions, 42% adhere to their point of view and condemn group decisions that lead to a crime. Comparison of the data suggests that a review of its position is a belated, but necessary step to break with a criminal group. At the same time, it can be concluded that in a criminal group a personality falls under the conditions of cruel group pressure (pressure), having to accept a group attitude towards criminal behavior.
The fourth type includes groups specially created for committing crimes. Here, from the very beginning, criminal activity is a group-forming factor and is subordinated to the will of one person - the organizer of the group (leader). Group criminal installation in them is pronounced. Microenvironmental norms are focused on the values ​​of the criminal subculture. In accordance with this, the structure of the group is determined, the roles in it are distributed: the leader, his confidant, the asset promoted, the new members attracted. In such a group, friendship and camaraderie fade into the background, since all the group’s activities are subordinated to the achievement of a criminal goal. Often, such groups act according to the laws of the pack, where mutual contamination, rampant elements provoke members of such an osprey to particular sophistication in mocking a person, cruelty, acts of vandalism2.
A variation of this type of group, which is distinguished by its special conspiracy, great cohesion and precise organization, the distribution of functions in the commission of a crime, is a gang.
Unlike other types of criminal groups, most often arising at the place of residence or study and “coming” to criminal activity through the sphere of leisure, a criminal gang can include members:
1) living at a considerable distance from each other;
2) of different ages (including adults);

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1 See. Dolgova A.I. Socio-psychological aspects of juvenile delinquency. M .: Legal literature. 1981
2 See. Borschagovsky A. Pack. LH, 1986, December 10; Kondratyev M.Yu. On leadership in the illegal community of minors // Psychological and pedagogical conditions for increasing the effectiveness of educational work on the prevention of crime among students. Kiev, 1980.
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3) along with males as well as females.
The most characteristic features of the gang's structural organization are: preliminary collusion and a focus on criminal activity, and in matters of norms and values ​​- on a leader who has criminal experience and a strong will. With the advent of such a person, the diffuse nature of asocial behavior acquires a clear criminal focus, determined by his personal qualities. He extends his influence to others who, without internal resistance (even with a known relief), are ready to accept his demands as his own. In a gang, adolescents and young men are especially intensively attached to criminal traditions, they develop and form confidence in the possibility of their existence outside a socially organized environment, they are actively inculcated in antisocial attitudes and habits.
The style of relations in the group is more often authoritarian, it is distinguished by strict subordination, great intensity and strength of group pressure (pressure). In a gang, the opposition is brought to the limit in relation to "strangers", "weak", adults, law enforcement officials.
An armed group that commits predominantly violent crimes (robberies against state, public and private enterprises and organizations, as well as individuals who take hostages, terrorist acts) is a gang (from Italian. - banda). The main signs of a gang are its armament and the violent nature of criminal activity. The gang belongs to the highest type of organized criminal groups. And then follows a secret criminal organization that unites several criminal groups to commit terrorist acts, smuggling drugs, weapons, controlling gambling houses and prostitution, which belongs to the Mafia (from Italian. - Mafia). The mafia makes extensive use of the methods of blackmail, violence, kidnapping, murder, "laundering of dirty money." Differs extreme authoritarianism of management, strict subordination and rigid discipline.
All crimes committed by criminal groups of minors are usually classified into: state crimes; property offenses; crimes against the life, health, freedom and dignity of citizens; crimes against the personal property of citizens; crimes against governance; crimes against public safety, public order and public health. All of them are committed and are violent, self-serving or forcibly-self-serving nature.
Of the studied criminal groups, about 30% committed the same type of crimes: violent crimes of the same plan, only mercenary crimes of the same plan. For example, the group systematically engaged in the theft and unmounting of vehicles. The other group was engaged only in “dacha thefts” (thefts of personal property of citizens in dacha and garden cooperatives). The third group was engaged in fartsovka and speculation; fourth - racketeering; fifth - burglary; sixth - gambling, etc.
Of the crimes under Art. 267 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (deactivation of vehicles or means of communication), there are mainly damage to communications and alarm systems in railway transport. The purpose of these crimes is to obtain colored glass for the manufacture of equipment for color music. There is stoning of passing trains with stones, leading to serious consequences (for example, death for the driver, passengers), which was repeatedly written in the press.
The majority of criminal groups of minors are distinguished by criminal mobility and commit crimes of various types, which combine mercenary and violent motives. Here are some combinations:
- hooliganism with theft of state and personal property;
- hooliganism with injuries, robberies of state and personal property; telephone terrorism;
- theft with carjacking and serious bodily harm (murder);
- theft with rape;
- robbery with vandalism, theft, rape; telephone terrorism; hostage taking;
- racket with injuries, hooliganism, murder.
The most common combinations of hooliganism with other acquisitive crimes, as well as thefts with rape, robbery, robbery.
A different set of typical combinations of crimes found in criminal groups of female minors. Most often there are tortures of rivals with malicious hooliganism, resulting in injuries and often murder, theft of personal property with extortion. It all starts with the girls' fights between the “queens” of the court (hostel) for domination in a certain territory, and ends with a whole set of offenses1.
An analysis of the attitudes of criminal groups revealed a certain tendency: the less organized the group and the less pronounced its criminal attitudes, the more diverse and more “random” the crimes committed by it. And vice versa, the closer a group in terms of its organization, structure and criminal installations to the type of groups, bands, gangs, the more typical the crimes it performs, the more professional they are committed. An example is the criminal gang with the participation of a teenager Nikolai P., specializing in burglaries, who committed 25 thefts in 2.5 months. And one more tendency: racketeering is always an incentive to commit other very diverse mercenary-violent crimes.
Thus, in the socio-psychological characteristics of criminal groups of minors occupy an important place: the composition of the group by age, sex, duration of their existence, degree of organization, criminal orientation (orientation), content and severity of criminal group attitudes. These factors determine the degree of their public danger, which is important to consider in the organization of preventive work.

Seminar
Types of juvenile crime groups
Issues for discussion:
1. The concept and general psychological characteristics of the criminal group of minors.
2. How does the influence of the size of the criminal group on its cohesion manifest?
3. What is the age characteristic of criminal groups of minors?
4. The role and status of women in the criminal group of minors.
4. To reveal the factors that determine the degree of cohesion and organization of groups of juvenile offenders.

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1 Poretskaya T., Leontyeva A. Bad company. Afterword to the verdict Interlocutor, May 1985, No. 20.