Bakharev, D. V. Regular Patterns of Establishing Territorial Differences of Crime in Evgeny Tarnovsky’s Works (On the 155th Anniversary of Birth of the Most Influential Representative of the Russian Criminal Statistics)

Abstract: Scientific achievements of Evgeny Nikitich Tarnovsky (1859–1936), a distinguished Russian scientist in the sphere of criminal statistics, were duly appreciated not only by the next generations but also by the contemporaries of the scientist. The latter focused on Tarnovsky’s achievements in the sphere of dynamics and structure of criminal rates in pre-revolutionary Russia, socio-economic and demographic factors of cime s well as classification of criminal personality data. Nevertheless, a whole number of Tarnovsky’s researches were devoted to the analysis of regular patterns of formation of territorial differences of crime which is left practically unknown for the modern reader. The author of the present research tries to cast more light on the matter. The author analyzes selected works written by Tarnovsky from the point of view of historical analysis. In addition, the author defines promising moments in the scientist’s researches which allow to extend the scope of criminological knowledge in the sphere of studying regular patterns of establishing territorial differences of crime and the mechanism of determination of crime in general. The author of the article focuses on a number of concepts discovered by Tarnovsky which still remain important for the contemporary science. These concepts include the following: a) the thesis that a drastic change in the level of crime is usually caused by the decrease or increase of the level of theft while other types of crime are not influenced by it that much, b) the well-founded conclusion about a difficult and controversial relation between the nature of migration processes and happening changes in the dynamics and structure of crime, c) the conclusion that if we study only economic conditions of the household and the nature of occupation of population on a particular territory, it will not allow us to fully predict the future development of crime in the given region, d) the statement that there is a certain connection between stages of the economic development of a state and changes in the level of crime; for example, the highest level of crime, according to Tarnovsky, can be noted during the periods of the intensive industrial development; e) very important conclusion saying that a very serious influence on changes of the level of crime in this or that country is made by the national structure of population and the degree to which the population keeps to the moral, ethic, religious and corporative (like in case of Japan) and other social standards considerably weakening the negative consequences of intensive social and economic processes.

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