Declared and True Goals of Criminal Punishment

The goals of punishment, enshrined in Part 2 of Article 43 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, should actually act as one of the key guidelines for the law enforcement officer when individualizing punishment. At the same time, the existing construction is rightly criticized as abstract and devoid of practical meaning. The purpose of the paper is to develop recommendations for improving criminal legislation in terms of regulating practice-oriented goals of punishment. To achieve this goal, the author has substantiated inappropriateness of attributing norms on the purposes of punishment to declarative norms, demonstarted incorrectness of specifying restoration of social justice and prevention of new crimes as the goals of punishment, explained stable failure to fulfill the goal of correcting convicts with due regard to indicators in Russia (from 2008 to 2021), highlighted the approach based on the expediency of normative consolidation of two goals of punishment (taking into account the requirements of unification (correlation with the tasks of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and focused on possibilities and expected results), namely, unconditional and complete restoration of the rights violated by the crime and correction of convicts. Taking into account pecularities of the existing system of types of punishment that actually makes the first of these goals unattainable, the author proposes to adjust norms regulating certain types of punishment (in essence, restorative principles should be referred to as exclusively fiscal in nature as existing punishments): priority compensation for damage caused to the victim, and only with full (or maximum possible in specific circumstances) compensation for all violated rights of the victim compensation to the State budget. The author argues that the goal of correcting a convicted person, despite being difficult to achieve (especially by criminal legal means), is necessary because it has regulatory potential.