ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT CRIMINAL SITUATION IN UKRAINE AS AN INFORMATION MODEL FOR DEVELOPING A STRATEGY TO REDUCE THE POSSIBILITY OF COMMITTING CRIMES

The  complex process of developing effective measures covered by the strategy to reduce the possibility of committing crimes should be based on an objective information model of the existing criminal situation in the country. In turn, this information model includes, first, quantitative and qualitative  indicators of crime, the main source of which is official criminal law statistics, and, secondly, contains information about the established by theoretical analysis determining the patterns of development and reproduction of criminal reality. At the same time, the task of this information model is to create predictive scenarios of possible options for further development of the criminal situation both in the country as a whole and in its individual regions. The purpose of this article is an in-depth analysis of quantitative and qualitative indicators of the criminal situation in Ukraine over the past seven to eight years. Such an analysis of the main types of criminal manifestations allows us to determine the nature of modern crime, to identify the most unfavorable trends in its development. This analysis makes it possible to create a complete detailed information model of the existence and development of criminal manifestations in the country, which should always be taken into account when developing appropriate crime prevention strategies. This is the link between criminological theory and practice. During the research, the authors applied dialectical, comparative, analytical, statistical, and other methods of processing and analyzing statistical material that characterizes the state of crime in Ukraine. The study found that the difficult socio-economic and militarypolitical situation that has been observed in Ukraine in recent years has contributed to the emergence of a number of new trends in the criminal reality of our state. These new trends are reflected in the following: the structure of crime has changed dramatically due to the prevalence of so-called crimes of aggression (violent, self-serving and violent crime, crimes against personal freedom, public safety, etc.); the quality of crime indicators has deteriorated due to an increase in the proportion of serious and especially serious crimes; a number of new socially dangerous acts that were not previously considered crimes have appeared in the criminal code; law enforcement agencies register criminal acts in large numbers, as in the past they were not known to the Ukrainian society at all; and so on. In connection with the above, the main conclusion is made that the national criminological science faces the task of systematic monitoring of the development of the criminal situation in Ukraine in order to work out in advance effective ways and means to stabilize this unfavorable situation.