Theoretical Foundations of the Interaction of the System of Legal Responsibility and the System of Combating Crime

Kuzmin Igor' Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0002-6478-6028 PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Irkutsk Law Institute (branch) of the University of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation 664035, Russia, g. Irkutsk, ul. Shevtsova, 1 grafik-87@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Garmyshev Yaroslav Vladimirovich PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Law, Criminology and Criminal Procedure, Baikal State University 664003, Russia, Irkutsk, Lenin str., 11 garmyv@mail.ru

In the protective system of the state, legal responsibility occupies a special position, since it ensures the protection of the most significant public relations in various spheres. Being a "strong" means of legal regulation and a complex (in fact, intersectoral) institution of law, responsibility penetrates into the most diverse elements of the legal system and is applied in cases where it is not possible to achieve the required level of legality with the help of other measures (for example, protective measures).

The ideas existing in the Russian consciousness about the effectiveness of the functioning of the mechanisms of legal responsibility do not allow us to speak about the confidence of society in the inevitability, justice of punishment, as well as in the equality of persons before the law and the court. This circumstance significantly distorts society's perception of legal responsibility as a means of maintaining lawful behavior and combating crimes and other offenses, reduces its preventive potential, which ultimately negatively affects the level of legal culture of the population.

Crime as an immanent property of people and their collectives for the reproduction of crimes ^{[1, pp. 108-109]} has the highest degree of public danger. A qualitative analysis of modern changes in legislation and the practice of its application is an indispensable condition for the development of a system of various measures of legal responsibility in the context of combating crime, which should take into account the specifics of the acts, the persons who committed them, the prevailing social (for example, poverty, the labor market) and other factors ^[2;3]. Thus, according to Yu. N. Antonyan, crime is a systemic, social and complex phenomenon that represents a part of the culture of society, albeit a negative one. The identification of intra-systemic interactions of crime with society (its spheres), according to the author's position, creates a material basis for building a crime prevention system ^{[4, pp. 462-465]}. In the context of reflection, there is also a connection between the social causes of crime and the social grounds for the emergence (establishment) of legal responsibility, which can be traced in the concept of grounds-contradictions of criminal responsibility by V. D. Filimonov ^{[5, pp. 21-23]} and T. A. Plaksinoy ^{[6, pp. 20-22]}. Virtualization of human living space creates very specific factors that determine the need to study the relevant patterns of formation, detection and counteraction (prevention) of crime. To illustrate what has been said, we suggest referring to a study by a group of scientists from the Research Center for Social Sciences of the University of Mississippi (USA), who found natural correlations between the level of property crime in the state and the level of Google searches for crime prevention. Researchers seriously consider Internet search as an innovative way to gain knowledge about the systemic characteristics of crime prevention ^[7].

As S. U. Dikaev and M. S. Dikayeva correctly note, the construction of prohibitions, as well as punishments for their violation, is necessary to consider the causality of crime and its neutralization. Accordingly, the construction of crimes and mechanisms that counteract them refers to the basic elements of statehood ^{[8, p. 41]}, which characterizes the already general social ties between the state and law, reflects the political and legal positions of special and non-special subjects of the fight against offenses. Additionally, it should be noted that the modern systems of the prosecutor's office and internal affairs bodies in the exercise of social control functions and the implementation of legal liability measures are among the main, but far from universal means of countering crime.

In the legal literature, it is noted that in order to create an effective crime prevention system, it is advisable to allocate criminological legislation to a separate branch of law when implementing various measures of legal responsibility. This circumstance indicates that the state has a need to focus law-making and law enforcement activities on eradicating not so much the consequences as the causes of crime, its "rudimentary" and even eventual (potential) state at the level of illegal non-criminal and even illegal (for example, corporate, immoral) socially harmful acts. In some foreign works, the idea of activating a positive approach and gradually abandoning the rehabilitation system in building the responsibility of citizens in the criminological aspects of countering crime is promoted ^[9;10]. In the face of emerging new challenges and threats, the state cannot remain indifferent, it is forced to take various measures to protect the constitutional (legitimate) interests of the state, society and the individual. Examples of this are the new elements of crimes introduced into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 63-FZ of June 13, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) to protect Russia's national security in connection with the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine initiated on February 24, 2022. Thus, Federal Law No. 32-FZ of March 04, 2022 established criminal liability for the public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as for public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintenance of international peace and security (Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

This outline suggests the need for theoretical and methodological coordination of the crime prevention system with the system of legal responsibility for their harmonization and further "synchronous" application in order to resolve the identified and a number of other socio-legal problems.

To clarify the subject of our research, we will consistently reveal the author's positions regarding the content and architectonics of the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime.

The system of legal responsibility is a complex legal phenomenon that can be characterized based on its constituent subsystems

? normative subsystem – as an element of the legal system, an intersectoral legal institution (a set of norms establishing punishments and sanctions for their commission);

? a procedural subsystem in the form of an ordered set of legal means ensuring the implementation of legal responsibility;

? an organizational subsystem covering the subjects involved at various stages of the implementation of legal responsibility ^{[11, pp. 66-68]}.

The proposed characteristic of the system of legal responsibility reveals its instrumental aspect, but does not reflect other possible facets of its "being". In particular, the ideological and philosophical content of the system remains outside the scope of cognition ^{[12, pp. 103-115]}, as well as many other "non-instrumental" elements. Meanwhile, for the purposes of this work, it is necessary to concentrate on a practice-oriented understanding of the system of legal responsibility, which has a direct relationship with the system of combating crime. We are moderately moving away from the "positive" perception of legal responsibility for future law-abiding behavior, since we consider it to be more of an illegal phenomenon ^{[13, p. 5-8]}.

In legislation and official sources, the term "system of responsibility" / "system of legal responsibility" is used extremely rarely. For example, it can be found in several agreements between the Government of Russia and the governments of neighboring states on the coordination of railway transport activities in terms of the obligations of the parties to establish a system of responsibility for violation of technological parameters of transportation work. In the program of urgent measures to improve the economic situation, approved at a meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation on November 16, 1992, a special paragraph noted the importance of regulating the system of responsibility for inefficient and self-serving use of state property. According to V. V. Ignatenko, one of the goals of the state policy in the field of waste management is to create and ensure a system of responsibility. In one of the materials of the case reviewed by the Novosibirsk Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, attention was drawn to the fact that the legislative interpretation of the verbal turnover "focus on attracting interest in goods, services and events" changes the entire system of legal responsibility for editorial materials (decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia dated May 22, 2019 in case No. 054/05/21-171/2019). It is easy to notice that in each of the above sources, the system of responsibility is understood as a set of its normative and separate varieties at the intersectoral or intra-sectoral level of the legal system. Accordingly, the normative subsystem of legal responsibility from the point of view of legal practice is assumed to be the leading (core) one, where its basic principle is implemented: legality. We are convinced that the subsystem under consideration includes norms of legal responsibility providing for illegal acts and punishments for their commission, and we also assume that it is possible to include in the subsystem substantive legal norms clarifying legally significant circumstances of illegal acts (for example, aggravating and mitigating responsibility). The considered regularities of the regulatory regulation of liability are most clearly traced in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, in which the norms of criminal liability constitute the main content of the law.

The procedural subsystem is usually referred to in the context of mechanisms for the implementation of legal responsibility. Thus, in Resolution No. 27-P of November 06, 2014, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (hereinafter ? The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation) drew attention to the fact that the preservation of state secrets by a citizen is guaranteed by appropriate mechanisms of legal responsibility. In its Ruling No. 1714-O-O dated December 08, 2011, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation concluded that guarantees of independence and independence of public entities ensuring the protection of citizens' rights and freedoms are achieved, among other things, by special mechanisms of legal responsibility. According to Roskomnadzor, Federal Law No. 436-FZ of December 29, 2010 "On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to their Health and Development" establishes the legal basis and organizational and legal mechanisms of legal liability for non-compliance with the requirements of the law. Meanwhile, the mechanism can be specialized ? provided specifically for the consideration of cases on bringing to legal responsibility (Chapter 29 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation dated 30.12.2001, No. 195-FZ), or general, based on the usual procedural form of the relevant body (Chapters 14-15 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation dated 08.03.2015, No. 21-FZ). As M. V. Zadneprovskaya correctly noted, the value of a systematic approach to legal responsibility lies in the "discovery" of the transition from the statics of this phenomenon to dynamics, which allows us to reveal the mechanism of its implementation as a cumulative effect of interaction of all its parties ^{[14, p. 10]}. Moreover, the procedural subsystem should be evaluated, first of all, based on the procedural and legal phenomena that make up it: norms of procedural law, procedural acts and procedural legal relations. This circumstance, in particular, clearly demonstrates the urgent need to coordinate the substantive criminal law norms with criminal procedural norms, which should act in unity, focusing on the goals, principles and functions of criminal responsibility.

The organizational subsystem covers numerous state and non-state bodies and organizations that participate in the process of implementing (imposing and executing) legal liability measures at various stages. Thus, talking about the elements of the system of legal responsibility ? its types, M.P. Avdeenkova urges not to forget about the subjects authorized to bring offenders to liability measures and subjects otherwise involved in legal relations for its implementation ^{[15, pp. 45-47]}. The allocation of structural elements (components) in the system of legal responsibility according to the subject criterion is also recognized by R.R. Khasnutdinov ^{[16, p. 35]}. V.M. Yagudina considers the presence of special authorities and officials implementing punishment as one of the qualifying signs of the allocation of an industry type of responsibility ^{[17, p. 15-16]}. The issue of including in this subsystem the powers of various entities to organize the process of implementing legal responsibility at its various stages, including the creation of new entities, is subject to further discussion.

The named subjects can be divided into the following groups:

- subjects investigating cases of prosecution (internal affairs bodies, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, etc.);

- subjects considering cases on bringing to legal responsibility (administrative commissions, courts, etc.);

- entities that ensure the execution of imposed punishments (criminal enforcement inspections, federal bailiff service, etc.);

- entities that are organizationally involved in the implementation of legal responsibility at various stages (for example, the prosecutor's office).

To date, a new "world jurisdiction" is being formed at the international level, which, from the point of view of practical purposes, should have been created as an international criminal jurisdiction with uniform conditions, approaches and criteria for the legal assessment of criminal acts. However, this collective subject of law will not be able to fully perform its functions due to its bias and direct dependence on the Western coalition led by the United States, which has different positions from most countries on what criminal behavior is, how it should be prevented, what acts should be considered crimes, and persons – criminals and much more. Individual politicians, based on the realities of modern times, have assumed the authority to determine what should be understood by crime (a specific crime), as well as to identify the perpetrators. These self-proclaimed fighters against crime began not just to define their jurisdiction, but rather arbitrarily, sometimes arbitrarily, and at their discretion to extend it to the whole world. All those who disagree with such a campaign are trying to punish and apply appropriate political and economic sanctions, which ultimately negatively affects the comprehensive approach to combating crime, testifies to interference in the affairs of independent states. Post-pandemic and demonstrating the inconsistency of monocentrism (unipolarity), the world is beginning to impose new demands on the increased responsibility of each state for its fate and place in the system of international relations. Based on this, the national legislator should be able and be ready to independently anticipate the current trends in the modification of crime ^[18].

When analyzing the activities of the subjects of combating crime, it is necessary to take into account the factor of combining their efforts in the form of coordination, assuming the existence of a single center that would determine and direct their activities. Coordinating the activities of law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime in our country is a traditional task for the prosecutor's office. However, it should be taken into account that beyond the coordination implemented by the prosecutor, there remain issues of ensuring legality and preventing other offenses, the implementation of which is carried out by structures that are not part of the coordination meeting or are not supervised by the prosecutor's office. Given the indicated circumstance, there is a real need at the federal (not intradepartmental!) to establish, regulate and ensure uniform interpretation in practice of the system of uniform principles-tasks of legal responsibility for crime prevention by authorized bodies and their officials.

The system of legal responsibility, being open, enters into numerous intersystem interactions that have a constructive or destructive impact on it. Moreover, these systems do not necessarily relate to the actual legal ones, although they are tied to the sphere of legal regulation. As a modern trend, it can be noted that offenders (especially in the field of modern digital technologies) are increasingly committing quasi-crimes. They find gaps in the law relatively easily and commit various torts (usually of a property orientation), prompting the legislator to establish new elements of crimes, expanding the scope of criminal law regulation, which entails artificial criminalization and complicates the legal qualification of acts in the conditions of created competition of norms when taking measures of legal responsibility ^{[19, p. 5]}. It is difficult to agree with such a law-making concept, since the creation of "new" grounds for criminal liability in the "ad hoc" mode invariably entails their imposition on the previous grounds, making the "normative body" of criminal liability more and more formless, unsystematic. Thus, the differentiation of the composition of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Fraud" into fraud in the field of lending (Article 159.1), upon receipt of payments (Article 159.2), using electronic means of payment (Article 159.3), in the field of insurance (Article 159.5) and in the field of computer information (Article 159.6) in the opinion of a significant number of representatives of investigative bodies, it has significantly complicated the identification and qualification of relevant crimes that previously fell under the general composition of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As a result, fraudsters and their defenders have more opportunities to implement a sharply increased number of schemes for avoiding criminal liability for the relevant acts. In this regard, an exception should be recognized as positive on the basis of Federal Law No. 325-FZ of July 03, 2016 of the previously introduced special corpus delicti "Fraud in the field of entrepreneurial activity" (Article 159.4). We hope that this legislative decision will someday become a trend.

Recently, the problem of securing and implementing legal responsibility for the actions of the so–called "artificial intelligence" - computer technologies of a special level - has become increasingly widespread and the most attention has been paid ^[20,21]. If we talk about the connecting, "generic" link between the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime, then this is the system of ensuring legality ^{[22, p. 28, 70]}, through which the formal rule of law (regulations) is transferred to the level of actual law and order (specific legal relations, legal practice). In this regard, the legislator should develop alternative ways to respond to socially harmful (especially criminal) acts in the field of digital technologies, adapting existing grounds and measures of responsibility for them, while unifying the law, refraining from creating casual (alien to our legal system) norms.

The crime prevention system is an extremely capacious term that covers a whole cross–section of socio-legal reality in which various social norms, mechanisms for their implementation and subjects of implementation operate, the whole meaning of whose interaction is to eliminate crime as a phenomenon of objective reality. In this context, we are impressed by the approach of A.V. Mayorov, who, based on the analysis of the current legislation of Russia, included in the crime prevention system a set of measures for the prevention and prevention of crime, acting by identifying and eliminating its causes and conditions, minimizing and eliminating consequences ^{[23, p. 115]}. Meanwhile, we cannot agree with the author regarding the strict differentiation of preventive and crime prevention measures (it seems conditional, largely far-fetched) and we believe that the scope of the concept of a crime prevention system is not limited to any one set of homogeneous measures.

Drawing an analogy with the system of legal responsibility, three subsystems can also be distinguished in the system of combating crime: normative, procedural and organizational. Practically confirming the indicated thesis, V.B. Shabanov and V.S. Krasikov analyze the content of crime prevention and find in it a set of legal, security and organizational measures ^{[24, p. 39]}. Analysis of federal laws "On the fundamentals of the system of crime prevention in the Russian Federation" dated 23.06.2016 No. 182-FZ, "On Combating Corruption" dated 25.12.2008 No. 273-FZ, "On Countering Terrorism" dated 06.03.2006 No. 35-FZ and "On Countering Extremist activity" dated 23.06.2016 No. 182-FZ they also convincingly prove the threefold elementary structure of the crime prevention system. In each of the acts, the legal and organizational foundations of the relevant activity are clearly delineated (by chapters, by text), the procedural forms (mechanisms) of the implementation of each type of crime-fighting activity are named.

The normative subsystem of combating crime is a set of norms that enshrine measures to combat crime and the actual grounds for their application. N.A. Krainova, speaking about the specifics of relations to combat crime, discovers the prospects for the formation of the "law of combating crime". It speaks of the need to improve legal regulation, develop appropriate principles and codify the main body of norms into an appropriate legal community ^{[25, p. 26-28]}. The authors of this article express serious doubts about the usefulness and reality of the implementation of such a proposal, but are ready to support any legal solutions for further systematization and expansion of crime prevention measures.

When assessing the effectiveness of activities to counteract modern crime, as the main task of the criminal law, it is necessary to take into account the effectiveness of the implementation of the criminal law prohibition, the violation of which may entail legal liability. Based on the available potential, criminal law norms can be divided into three types: with effective preventive potential, norms with zero preventive potential and norms with antiprophylactic potential ^{[26, p. 23]}. The norms that determine the legal nature of the crime, its categories, criteria for sentencing, etc. have a fairly good effect of countering crime. In the context of legal responsibility, it should be borne in mind that the peculiarity of offenses is that the norms-prohibitions are at the junction of several branches of law. This shows the essential interrelation of criminal and sectoral legislation in solving the problem of combating crimes. Some researchers note that the practice of applying blank norms, which by their nature are included in the group with zero criminological prescription, is considered unjustified and arbitrary in legal regulation ^[27]. We believe that the effectiveness of the blank norms directly depends on the consistency of the entire industry legislation in matters of coordinated "subsidiary" replenishment of the action of some measures of legal liability in relation to others. Thus, administrative and legal responsibility for the retail sale of alcoholic beverages to a minor (Part 2 of Article 14.16 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation No. 195-FZ - Administrative Code of the Russian Federation dated December 30, 2001) has a preventive and, to a certain extent, a compensatory effect in relation to similar acts committed by a specific subject repeatedly (the latter are recognized as crimes and entail criminal liability according to Article 151.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In addition, it is important to "cover" the legal responsibility of the entire complex of legal relations affected by the offense. For example, paragraph 4 of Article 108 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation No. 146-FZ of July 31, 1998 specifically stipulates that bringing an organization to responsibility for a tax offense does not exempt its officials from administrative, criminal and other liability.

Therefore, the formation of the foundations of criminal policy in the field of combating crime should include the following areas:

1) establishment of an optimal ratio of sectoral norms of law in the implementation of common tasks for the protection of law and order and the maintenance of legality (for example, determining the balance between public and private legal interests when imposing liability measures);

2) ensuring effective interaction of the provisions of Russian legislation in the field of law enforcement (in particular, a clear delineation and correlation of powers between the bodies involved in the implementation of legal responsibility);

3) elimination of the identified systemic shortcomings of criminal legislation (and law) in terms of the norms providing for liability for offenses (including the identification and elimination of conflicts between them) ^{[28, p. 56]}.

The lack of a comprehensive approach to regulatory regulation and concentration only on industry problems leads to fragmentation in the development of measures to combat crime. A clear example of the inconsistency of sectoral legislation is the situation of the spread of a special procedure for initiating criminal proceedings for crimes under Chapter 23 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, where criminal and criminal procedure legislation do not uniformly define the principle of dispositivity, coordination of law enforcement actions. Thus, in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 63-FZ of 13.06.1996 (the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation No. 174-FZ of 18.12.2001 (the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), various subjects of filing an application for the initiation of a criminal case are specified. As a result, the links between the procedural and organizational subsystems of legal responsibility are disrupted, reducing the effectiveness of countering crime.

The procedural subsystem of crime prevention combines mechanisms for the implementation of measures to combat crime. For example, S.A. Timko considers the application of the rules of procedural law to the guilty as one of the constructive elements of countering crime, taking into account the proximity of the fact of application to the moment of the illegal act ^{[29, p. 7]}. Article 10 of the Federal Law "On the Federal Security Service" dated 03.04.1995 No. 40-FZ defines that the activities of the service in the field of combating crime are carried out "in accordance with the legislation on operational investigative activities, criminal and criminal procedure legislation of the Russian Federation, as well as this Federal Law." By virtue of paragraph 9 of Part 2 of Article 6 of the aforementioned law "On the fundamentals of the system of crime prevention in the Russian Federation", the implementation of the main directions of crime prevention is also carried out through the application of special measures of a criminal procedural, criminal executive and operational investigative nature.

The organizational subsystem of crime prevention consists of various State and non-State bodies and organizations that are directly involved in the implementation of measures to combat crime. There are grounds for discussing the inclusion in this subsystem of individual entities exercising organizational powers that affect the quality of combating crime (for example, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, performing control and audit powers). Actualizing the significance of this subsystem, V.I. Belosludtsev and A.Y. Solonin note that throughout the years after the collapse of the USSR, the structure and system of state authorities are transformed annually. At the same time, the changes do not actually affect the essence of these bodies, in connection with which the author states the obvious absence of a unified national concept of combating crime ^{[30, pp. 23-24]}. M.M. Shakiryanov considers an important element in the fight against organized crime to be a well-built system of specialized agencies that counteract crimes ^{[31, p. 256]}.

Comparing the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime, we consider the corresponding relationship (interaction, mutual influence, contradictions) from the point of view of three methodological levels: substantive, structural and actually systemic. We study the designated systems through the prism of the subsystems forming them.

From the point of view of the content of the normative subsystem at the junction of the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime (at the intersection of Euler circles) there is one common element: measures of criminal responsibility. Being the central link of the crime prevention system, criminal liability is constructively included in the content of the institute of legal responsibility as a branch type (element) of responsibility, as a set of norms that fix the elements of crimes and punishments for their commission, including circumstances aggravating and mitigating responsibility. Criminal liability, being a normative element of the system of legal responsibility, is focused on combating crime, and its goals (restoration of social justice, correction of the convicted person and prevention of crimes, according to Part 2 of Article 43 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) show the orientation of this legal institution and its role in the general mechanism of combating crime. The structural features of the normative subsystem of legal responsibility and combating crime in the designated structure of criminal liability coincide, their content is linked to the mutual disposition of norms on crimes and responsibility for them, based on the value of various objects protected by criminal law. Actually, the system level of knowledge of the normative subsystem shows the potential of the norms of criminal responsibility for interaction in the process of their application to combat crime. The links between the norms of criminal responsibility can be explicitly expressed (prescribed in the law) or are hidden and should be deduced analytically. Thus, by virtue of clause "d" of Part 3 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, liability is established for theft committed from a bank account, which is applied only in the absence of signs of fraud using electronic means of payment (Article 159.3), as stated in the article itself. At the same time, the norms of Article 159.6 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation establishing liability for fraud in the field of computer information (in the absence of an official indication of the existing connection) often require additional qualifications under Article 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (unlawful access to computer information), which S.V. Sheveleva particularly drew attention to ^{[32, pp. 230-231]}.

The procedural subsystem of legal responsibility and combating crime is connected with the mechanism of imposing criminal liability, which is mainly set out in the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and other (primarily departmental) regulatory legal acts, which is especially important when respecting the rights and legitimate interests of citizens ^{[33, p. 36]}. Substantive procedural norms, acts and legal relations arising in connection with the implementation of criminal responsibility are also "in the zone" of countering crime, since the initiation and investigation of criminal cases also characterizes the functional purpose of measures to combat crime. The structural level demonstrates the mutual arrangement of procedural norms and acts in the legislation and the "reference points" of the implementation of criminal liability, and the actual system level shows the interaction of all procedural elements of the criminal liability system during the deployment of the relevant procedural legal relations. P.P. Serkov notes that legal liability is characterized by the imperative nature of the emergence of legal relations, and its procedure is initiated by an authorized entity without the consent of the offender ^{[34, pp. 46-47]}.

The organizational subsystem of legal responsibility and combating crime at the substantive level unites authorized bodies and organizations (their officials) that participate in the process of implementing criminal responsibility. The efficiency and completeness of the investigation and disclosure of the crime, the implementation of the principle of the inevitability of criminal responsibility directly depend on the legality, rationality and organization of the investigator's work at all stages of the criminal process. At the structural level, these subjects are arranged depending on the hierarchical and other position in relation to each other, based on their direct significance in the legal relations of responsibility. The actual system level of knowledge of the organizational subsystem shows the functional interrelationships and interdependencies of the subjects under consideration.

The above refers exclusively to the elements common to the system of legal responsibility and combating crime ? this is the most common view of the problem. At the same time, it is naive to deny the interaction of these systems with each other in other planes and relationships. As an actualization of the problems, we propose to pay attention to the following "spheres" of interaction of the compared systems:

1) economic sphere: the level of welfare of the state and society, economic conditions that reduce / increase the risk of committing crimes, the conditionality of the priority of property measures of responsibility over personal (organizational) and vice versa;

2) political sphere: compliance of manifestations of political will in the establishment and implementation of responsibility for certain illegal acts of political rights (freedoms) and expectations of members of society;

3) social sphere: unity of social prerequisites for the establishment of undesirable illegal acts and the definition of adequate (effective) measures to combat them in the public interest;

4) ideological sphere: harmonization of basic ideas (freedom, equality, justice and others) with the ideas, principles and goals laid down in the basis of the system of legal responsibility, based on the features of the real content of the prevailing ideology in society;

5) legal sphere: determination of law-making and law enforcement (including legal and technical) priorities in the formation of the system of legal responsibility and its implementation in specific legal relations, as well as identification of the specifics of the individual and cumulative impact of responsibility on various public relations in conjunction with other measures of state coercion;

6) "engineering" sphere: using the methodology of sociology, mathematics, cybernetics, and other sciences to build various design models that evaluate the expected and obtained results of the legal liability system according to the specified parameters on certain conditions ^[35].

Ultimately, the system of legal responsibility should act "in concert with the economic system, the system of education and upbringing, labor relations and other systems ... taking into account ... features is necessary to realize the real situation in public relations and determine the functions of legal responsibility" ^{[35, p. 74.]}. The above idea is directly reflected in legal practice, which we have repeatedly drawn attention to ^{[36, pp. 123-125]}.

Thus, we come to the following conclusions.

Firstly, legal responsibility is the strongest and most effective means of ensuring law and order, which can reveal its potential (including in countering crime as a systemic phenomenon) only if its design is systematic and the latter is properly used during the law–making and law enforcement process.

Secondly, the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime from the standpoint of their instrumental characteristics include three subsystems: normative, procedural and organizational, each of which can be implemented only in cooperation with the other two and needs appropriate legal harmonization.

Thirdly, the improvement of the system of combating and preventing crime directly depends on the adequate perception by the legislator of changes in the field of modern technologies, digitalization of constantly complicated and changing public relations. The lack of a comprehensive vision of the relevant social processes leads to fragmentation in the development of anti-crime measures, does not allow to formulate the foundations of criminal policy, including in connection with the intersectoral institute of legal responsibility.

Fourth, the system of legal responsibility and the system of combating crime should be considered from the point of view of the substantive, structural and proper-systemic methodological levels at which they consistently demonstrate their potential in various areas of interaction.

Fifth, a systematic approach to the perception of legal responsibility and activities to counteract (prevent) crime allows us to develop appropriate tools to eliminate both the consequences and causes of offenses at the regulatory and individual level of legal regulation, while improving the quality of legislation and law enforcement.