Organized Begging: History, Concept and Features

This paper is one of the first studies on a relatively new type of criminal activity, namely organized begging. Modern begging is no longer associated with deprivation, poverty, homelessness, starvation and unemployment. The results of the study suggest that now begging is one of the ways of parasitism on mercy and naivety (the number of real people in need of financial support is 5-10%, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg this figure is even lower and does not exceed 2-3 %). Under the leadership of organized criminal groups, begging has become a criminal industry. The paper investigates the causes of organized begging. The author concludes that the condition of its occurrence was the decriminalization of systematic vagrancy or begging together with the abolition of administrative responsibility for these anti-social actions. The study is relevant because the modern legal literature lacks a single concept of begging as a type of illegal activity supervised by organized crime. The analysis made it possible to conclude that the most acceptable and reflecting the specifics of the considered anti-social phenomenon is the concept of «organized begging». For the first time in the Russian legal literature the definition of organized begging is given. According to the author, it is understood as a negative social phenomenon, which is an organized criminal activity aimed at making a profit from begging by others. The features of organized begging are defined: 1) organized nature of activity; 2) the use of voluntary forced labor; 3) the commission of crimes against the freedom, honor and dignity of the individual; 4) pronounced ethnic or related nature of the formation; 5) obtaining super profits; 6) corruption of state bodies.