Pandora Papers and the latest European efforts to combat money laundering, tax evasion and tax avoidance

Following the revelations of the Pandora Papers on offshore financial mechanisms which allow European citizens to avoid paying tax obligations and to commit tax evasion or money laundering offenses, the European Parliament adopted Resolution 2021/2922 (RSP) requiring Member States to take urgent and decisive action, both legislative and investigative, to combat this type of criminal behavior. As a response to the request formulated by the Parliament, the European Commission drafted a Proposal for a council Directive laying down rules to prevent the misuse of shell entities for tax purposes by introducing new monitoring and reporting regulations.

Understanding the Relationship between Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Criminal Justice: A Systematic Review

Prenatal alcohol exposure is considered one of the main causes of preventable birth disorders; however, it represents the main form of developmental delay in the world. Among the so-called secondary disabilities related to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), there is a close connection with criminal behavior. This systematic review aims to provide up-to-date information about the relationship between FASD subjects and criminal justice analyzing different aspects. In light of the results of this review, a further goal is to provide several suggestions in order to reduce the public cost impact of FASD. A systematic review of the literature was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines, producing 20 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Based on the results published in the selected studies, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a leading cause of preventable birth disorders and developmental disabilities in newborns. Moreover, these subjects seem to be more inclined to criminal acts compared to others. In conclusion, it should be pointed out that FASD entails high public health costs, both regarding the support measures provided to the affected individual and to their family, as well as the cost and social impact of any criminal offenses committed.

Main Trends in the Development of Criminological Theory and Crime Prevention Practice in the Context of the Digitalization of Society

The digitalization of society, associated with a large-scale introduction of digital technologies in all socially relevant spheres, not only brough about positive changes, but also had a powerful effect on the transformation of crime and criminogenic factors. This has created an urgent need for understanding the prospects of criminological science in the new conditions, for strengthening its role in ensuring national security, for improving its methodology in new ways. The authors define key criminal threats to the security of the digital space: a rapid increase of its criminalization due to the features attractive for criminals (trans-national character of cyberspace, widespread anonymization and encryption, digital means of committing crimes and concealing their traces, etc.); the emergence and widening of criminogenic zones of cyberspace, with DarkNet holding a special place; the use of «digital» methods of resisting law enforcement, including cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence. It is concluded that the abovementioned circumstances make it necessary to change the methodology of criminological research and the practice of law enforcement. The collection and generalization of information from publicly available digital sources, its analysis with the use of big data acquire a special research potential connected with the possibility of finding hidden regularities and obtaining criminological knowledge that cannot be found elsewhere. The digitalization of society creates conditions for the introduction of a preventive model of law enforcement based on predictive analysis methods. It becomes possible to quickly detect signs of criminal activity that require both a specific reaction of law enforcement and systemic managerial decisions. It also opens broad prospects for predicting individual criminal behavior by analyzing the Internet activity of specific individuals. The authors then highlight the most relevant directions for the development of criminological theory and the practice of crime prevention in the conditions of the digitalization of society.

Social-Psychological Causes of Youth Extremism in Krasnodar Region

The authors study socio-psychological determinants of extremist criminal behavior of young people in Krasnodar Region within the framework of socio-economic, national and geographical specifics of the territory. The main goal was to identify and specify subjective (inner) causes as an aggregate of personal psychological features, needs, emotions, motives, specifics of conscience and volition that shape the intent and determine the qualitative side of extremist crimes. The authors used both general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, etc.) and special (statistical and specific-sociological) methods of cognition. The dominant source of information was results of a questionnaire survey of 146 young people who were residents of Krasnodar Region aged 18–24 with the same level of education; they were university students (57 %), and students of vocational schools and colleges (28 %). The obtained data were used for SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) analysis, which identified regularities in the formation of the public opinion typical for young people in Krasnodar Region. Besides, the authors established a factor commonality which served as a logical proof that psychological patterns typical of the youth environment, stereotypes and models of behavior act as determinants of extremist actions. All of these allowed the authors to state that there are a number of negative trends, such as the mental acceptance of some extremist actions by young people, especially actions against people of a different race, nationality, religion; this acceptance is common for 20 % of people aged 18 to 24; young people do not know about 5 out of 13 types of extremist activities included in the federal legislation; extremist information is easily available on the Internet. To eliminate these trends, the authors suggest a number of measures: activization of legal information campaign; identification of students who are highly likely to commit extremist actions; creation of a system of model features of extremist behavior to be used in the preventive work in educational establishments of Krasnodar Region; designing and teaching, on the regional level, a special subject of preventive nature to high school, college and university students.