YEREVAN, MARCH 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian justice ministry seeks to tackle criminal subculture by law.

According to a bill, the ministry suggests amending the criminal code and criminalizing “the creation of a criminal environment, leading it, getting involved in it voluntarily, being involved in criminal subculture and spreading it”.

The bill also envisages specifying the terms “criminal environment”, “criminal subculture”, “person having highest status of criminal hierarchy” and “association and promotion of criminal subculture” by law.

According to the justice ministry, the need to adopt the bill is associated with overcoming the criminal environment and criminal subculture in the society, uncovering persons bearing and promoting it and defining a new type of crime for preventing criminal hierarchy.

According to the explanation of the bill, authorities have studied the practice of several post-Soviet countries in the matter. Namely, similar bills have been developed in Russia and Ukraine, as well as Georgia.

“Person having highest status of criminal hierarchy” refers to the “thieves-in-law”.

This phenomenon, known as thief-in-law, emerged in the infamous Soviet gulags and became a prison culture in most of post-Soviet states.

“Thief-in-law” is a specifically granted formal status of a professional criminal who enjoys an elite position within the organized crime environment and employs informal authority over its lower-status members. Criminals are “crowned” as thieves-in-law by senior members of the organized crime syndicates for many years of contributions to the criminal business or long record behind bars.

Thieves-in-law are known for their distinctive tattoos and code of conduct.

According to the bill’s justification, a criminal subculture is a serious challenge for the society because it jeopardizes its values and perceptions.

“It is noteworthy that the slang of criminals has infiltrated into nearly all public sectors and is negatively impacting the society by changing their perceptions about human relationships and cultural values”, the bill’s explanation says.

The current criminal code doesn’t include the specific abovementioned types of crimes.

UPDATES:

17:05 - The Ministry of Justice has removed the bill from the e-draft.am online platform for additional amendments. The abovementioned bill is a preliminary version. 

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan