4. Characteristics of criminal groups by the duration of their existence

Preventive work should take into account the duration of the existence of criminal groups of minors. Most of these groups exist from 1 to 6 months. However, during this period of time they manage to commit an average of 7 crimes per group before their criminal prosecution begins.

____________
1 See. Poretskaya T., Leontyeva A. Bad Company. Afterword to the sentence. The interlocutor, May 1985, No. 20.
2 See. Putilov V. Bloody sister of murderers // Outside the law. Appendix to the newspaper "Kaleidoscope". 1996, No. 4 (14).
___________

the knowledge. Criminal prosecution may lead to the disintegration of only parts of such groups (some members of the group are arrested, others are sent to special educational institutions, others are registered in the department for the prevention of juvenile delinquency, etc.). In part of the groups and after the arrest of their members, adolescents continue to maintain interpersonal contacts by correspondence, in the hope of restoring direct interpersonal contacts of their participants after serving the term of punishment, returning from a colony or a special school. Long-term criminal groups of minors are especially dangerous, and it is not possible to identify the moment of their occurrence in a number of cases “beyond the distance of years”.
The duration of the existence of such groups is explained by a number of factors. First of all, the adverse criminological situation in the region (microdistrict), where minors are pedagogically neglected, is affected. Contributes to this curtailment of educational and preventive work in all types of educational institutions. The role of adult repeat offenders is great. It is also influenced by the fact that not all members of the group after committing a crime (crimes) come into the view of law enforcement agencies. Criminal traditions stabilize the group, encouraging the “inflexible” behavior of minors during the investigation and in court, which allows members of the group (more often the leader, adults) to avoid criminal responsibility. After the arrest and conviction of part of the group, they recreate it anew. For example, in a group where the leader was a nineteen year old D., three teenagers were convicted and sent to a colony, one was conditionally convicted, one was sent to a special school. D. himself and the teenager K. were not brought to criminal responsibility. They restored the group at the expense of new members from among freshmen.
The criminal group, where R. was the leader, after repeated arrests of its members, was restored 5 times, replenishing each time at the expense of pedagogically neglected adolescents entering the school, as well as “old men” returning from the educational and labor colony and vocational schools. Returning "old men", fanned by the halo of "thieves' romance," brought to the group traditions and laws of the criminal environment of the correctional institution, contributing to the further criminalization of group members, their professionalization in the commission of crimes.
What else, as a lack of knowledge of the situation, disregard for the study of relationships on the part of the teaching staff can explain the facts of such a long existence of criminal groups in a number of educational institutions, turning them into a kind of "school" for training juvenile delinquents. Generations of adolescents are being replaced, and the group continues to exist, swelling the ranks of juvenile offenders. After all, the employees of the Department of Training and Production Assistants, pedagogical workers could trace the history of the emergence and development of these criminal groups, reveal all the remaining connections of criminals at large, prevent the consolidation of the remaining ones, and include them in the groups of newcomers. But this was not done.