Abstract: The article highlights the main problems associated with the definition of the criminal hierarchy of Russia, its criminological features and characteristics. The criminal hierarchy represents a system of relations that have developed in the criminal environment and determine the order of subordination of the lower links to the higher ones. The author conducts a comparative analysis of the criminal hierarchy of Russia and the hierarchy operating in places of deprivation of liberty (penitentiary hierarchy), noting that the criminal hierarchy is a broader concept and includes the prison (penitentiary) hierarchy, which is its integral part. The author presents various opinions of scientists on this issue concerning the functioning, characteristics and features of the criminal hierarchy of Russia.
    The main conclusion of the study is that there is not and cannot be a single criminal hierarchy on the territory of Russia with a single control center, a strict system of subordination and subordination of the lower levels of criminal communities (organizations) to the higher ones. The analysis of the operational situation shows that various OPS and EOPGS operate in the Russian Federation, including those headed by persons with leadership status who carry out their activities within the so-called "thieves' community", which is the most structured segment of the criminal hierarchy, in addition, prison (penitentiary hierarchy) operates in correctional institutions, which is also a segment of the criminal hierarchy. Only the totality of all segments forms the so-called criminal hierarchy of Russia (the criminal world of Russia), which is not a single and integral structure, and the system of subordination is characteristic only for its individual elements.

Abstract: The article highlights the main problems associated with the definition of persons with leadership status in the criminal environment, the categories of persons are considered: "thief in law", "poser", "looker" and their place in the criminal hierarchy. The position of persons who are the leaders of organized criminal communities (OPS), who do not have the specified criminal statuses, but occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy of the OPS created by them, is disclosed. The article also considers the position in the criminal hierarchy of "thieves in law", deprived by the decision of the thieves' meeting of status leadership (uncrowned), "thieves in law" retired (proshlyakov). The author raises the question of the ability of persons of this category to occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy (to be subjects of crimes provided for in Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
  In the course of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the criminal hierarchy on the outside is not identical to the prison criminal hierarchy (penitentiary), and a person who occupies a sufficiently high criminal status in the prison hierarchy, after being released and joining a criminal community (criminal organization), may not occupy a leading position there. The author also gives arguments that such persons as "poser" and "looker" occupy the highest position in the criminal hierarchy only if they are the leaders of OPS and EOPS, having a multi-level hierarchy in their structure with the presence of a higher position in it, in all other cases, according to the author, persons of this category do not occupy the highest, and the "high" position and subjects of Part 4 of Article 210 and Article 210.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are not.