Tendencies of Imposing Life Imprisonment

The legislative regulation and the specifics of the execution of life imprisonment in the Russian Federation and in foreign countries are examined in this article using the formal legal and comparative legal methods of scientific research. Life imprisonment as a type of punishment is applied in the vast majority of countries all around the world in various forms (such as indefinite life imprisonment or de facto life imprisonment, a term of fifty or more years). This punishment can be attributed to exceptional ones, since in terms of severity it is second after death penalty and actually deprives the convicted person not only of freedom, but also of all other rights except the right to life (which is the main difference between life imprisonment and death penalty). It is advisable to impose life imprisonment only for the most grave crimes and only on the most dangerous criminals. However, legislators of some countries do not share this opinion. Life imprisonment may be imposed not only for serious crimes against life, but also for crimes against sexual integrity and freedom, crimes against public safety (the so-called crimes of terrorist nature), as well as for crimes related to drug trafficking. Moreover, in some countries, life imprisonment may be imposed on minors, who in some cases do not have the right to parole. The authors consider the prospects for improving the legal norms on life imprisonment and propose to provide the possibility of imposing this punishment without the right to parole in the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation. The right to parole of persons sentenced to life imprisonment can be completely excluded from the legislation. To do this, the grounds for imposing life imprisonment must be changed (first of all, the list of crimes in the Russian Criminal Code for which this type of punishment can be imposed). The authors find it more acceptable to enshrine in the legislation life imprisonment without the right to parole for especially grave crimes against life and life imprisonment with the right to parole after serving ten or fifteen years of imprisonment, not twenty-five years as stipulated in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. With these two types, it seems necessary to conduct an independent comprehensive judicial examination of a convict's correctability (when judges choose the type of life imprisonment) and results of correction (when judges decide on the release on parole).