The cardinal changes experienced by our society in all spheres of political and socio-economic life cannot but spread to preventive and penitentiary practice in the field of prevention and correction of deviant behavior in children and adolescents. The content of the restructuring of the educational and preventive system, first of all, is determined by the fact that the previously existing "punitive" prevention, based on measures of social control, social and administrative and criminal punishment, should be replaced by protective and protective prevention, represented by a set of measures adequate social and legal, medical-psychological and social-pedagogical support and assistance to families, children, adolescents, youth.

The practical implementation of the protective and protective concept of prevention is possible only when solving a number of issues of organizational and managerial, socio-pedagogical, psychological, regulatory and legal and personnel support.

Organizational and managerial support involves overcoming interdepartmental disunity and lack of coordination of educational and preventive activities of various social institutions, institutions and departments and the creation of authorized state bodies of municipal authority in charge of the problems of social protection of families and children, including in their staff professionally trained lawyers, social workers, psychologists, physicians capable of carrying out the whole range of measures of social assistance to families, children, adolescents.

Social and pedagogical support consists in the creation of socio-pedagogical centers (material and technical base, pedagogical personnel, financing), intended for the organization of work and recreation of children and adolescents, to create an educational environment that allows them to harmonize their relations with their closest environment in the family, according to place of residence, work, study.

Social and psychological support involves the provision of social and psychological assistance to the family, children, adolescents: medical and psychological counseling, resolving conflict situations experienced by children and adolescents, organizing a telephone and hotline services, psychological diagnostics and psychological correction of deviant behavior. Along with psychological and pedagogical consultations and helplines, psychological services should have rehabilitation centers, social shelters, shelters for adolescents who find themselves in an acutely critical situation in the family, which can lead to runaways, vagrancy, and suicides.

Regulatory support includes the development of effective legal norms and mechanisms that allow in practice to implement the protection and protection of the individual, health and rights of the child, review and streamline the legal framework for the social and legal protection of families and children, as well as create a more perfect fancy-penitentiary system for juvenile offenders.

Staffing involves the introduction and training of new for our country cadres of social workers, social educators, rehabilitators, practical psychologists who are able to provide professional social, psychological and socio-pedagogical assistance, primarily to families, children and adolescents at risk.

Along with the opening of new specializations, it is important to conduct more in-depth professional psychological, pedagogical and legal training and retraining of teachers, educators, employees of inspectorates for minors, other persons involved in preventive practice, problems of preventing deviant behavior.

In turn, solving the problem of complex organizational and managerial, socio-pedagogical, psychological, regulatory, legal, financial and material and personnel support for the prevention of deviant behavior in minors is impossible without a deep study of the nature of deviant behavior and ways to prevent it, as well as active practical activity and specific measures by the government and municipal authorities.

Both the scientific study and the practical solution of the problems of restructuring preventive practice are significantly hampered by the fact that at present a paradoxical situation has developed in the domestic preventive science and practice. On the one hand, a significant number of social institutions and public organizations are involved in the participation in educational and preventive work. So, according to criminologists, in one administrative region there are up to 40 different bodies dealing with the problems of preventing juvenile delinquency and in dire need of scientific support for their activities. On the other hand, the study of the problem of deviant behavior in children and adolescents is carried out by numerous representatives of related branches of knowledge: psychology, pedagogy, medicine, criminology, etc.

At the same time, at present, there is a noticeable gap between the prevailing preventive practice and theory, which, first of all, negatively affects the effectiveness and efficiency of educational and preventive work of the entire system of social prevention bodies for deviant behavior of minors. This state of affairs was not accidental, since the application in educational and preventive practice of the results of research carried out in various highly specialized branches of scientific knowledge and not directly related to the activities of actually operating institutions and social institutions turns out to be very difficult for practical use. Therefore, today there is an urgent need to combine and systematize the results of various numerous studies on the problems of deviating command and its prevention within the framework of a single applied psychological knowledge, to evaluate the information accumulated on this problem in social, legal, developmental and educational psychology, in other related branches of science, before in total, in relation to educational and preventive activities of a really operating system of early prevention.

The creation of psychological support is the most important condition for increasing the effectiveness of educational and preventive activities. In turn, the problem of increasing the effectiveness of early prevention should be addressed in the following main directions: first, timely diagnosis of asocial deviations and social maladjustment of minors and the implementation of a differentiated approach in the choice of educational and preventive means of psychological and pedagogical correction of deviant behavior; secondly, the identification of unfavorable factors and desocializing influences from the immediate environment, which cause deviations in the development of the personality of minors, and the timely neutralization of these unfavorable maladaptive influences.

Hence, it becomes necessary to conduct a systematic analysis of individual, personal, socio-psychological and psychological-pedagogical factors that determine social deviations in the behavior of minors, taking into account which educational and preventive work should be built and carried out to prevent these deviations.

Thus, the object of consideration of this book is a variety of unfavorable factors of deviating behavior of children and adolescents from psychobiological prerequisites, conditions of family upbringing, informal street communication, to those reasons that lead to a weakening of the educational influence of class collectives, determine the alienation of adolescents from such leading institutions of socialization. , which are schools, other teaching and educational groups.

A systematic consideration of unfavorable factors of asocial behavior of minors in relation to the educational and preventive activities of the system of early prevention organs, of course, has a number of objective difficulties, both theoretical and organizational and practical. This is due, first of all, to the fact that the theoretical understanding of this problem should be carried out, as we have already noted above, in an interdisciplinary plan, the collection of empirical material is inter-sectoral, interdepartmental in nature and extends to the activities of special and general bodies of early prevention, which have different departmental subordination. including institutions of public education, health care, culture, internal affairs, public and charitable organizations. Such interdepartmental disunity of early prevention bodies, as well as isolation, inconsistency of scientific approaches in the study of this acute social problem complicate the creation of psychological support for preventive practice and, at the same time, make it especially relevant.

This relevance is also due to the fact that at present, the task of widespread introduction into practice of various new preventive services is especially acute - psychological consultations, social and educational centers, helplines, social shelters, rehabilitation centers, the development of which is also constrained by the lack of systemic psychological knowledge about nature. deviant behavior and ways to prevent it.

In this regard, on the basis of numerous disparate psychological, pedagogical, medical, criminological studies carried out in our country and abroad, as well as using the results of his own long-term research, the author made an attempt in this book to outline the main content and scope of preventive psychology as an applied science, designed to professionalize and humanize educational and preventive practice to prevent deviant behavior in children and adolescents.

Purpose of the study: analysis of social and psychological characteristics of criminogenic groups of adolescents

Research objectives:

Describe the social orientations of youth and the problem of delinquency

Provide a description of informal adolescent groups

Analyze the social and psychological characteristics of adolescent crime groups

Identify and summarize the existing problems of preventing juvenile group delinquency

Object of study: crime groups of adolescents

Subject of study: socio-psychological characteristics of criminogenic groups of adolescents

Chapter 1. Social orientations of youth and the problem of delinquency

So far, we have considered those institutions that are designed to make a young person a normal socialized individual, a citizen of the country, i.e. accepting the basic norms of the society in which he lives, as something due and self-evident. But there is a fairly large group of young people who no longer live or do not want to live according to the norms and laws of our society, which becomes the subject of statistical calculations on crime, the object of the work of law enforcement agencies, etc.

It seems that it is necessary to look at this problem deeper than it looms on the surface, i.e. not just eventful, as a certain set of facts qualified as a crime, but as a whole, as antisocial behavior. Everyone is accustomed to taking dry crime reports for a year or more and comparing the numbers. Compare, if there are comparable gradations of the number of offenses, or add new ones, if there were no similar ones earlier. And then, on the basis of a simple extrapolation, to judge the possible size of youth, including adolescent, crime, its growth, complication, etc. But at the same time, it is not possible to deduce any regularity among the mass of statistical indicators, because this regularity is not seen from the figures of offenses themselves. An attempt to associate this simply with demographic waves failed, as well as an attempt to continue the trend in any particular type of crime. There is a rise, then a fall, and no one can say what will happen next year. For the first time, we will try not just to comment on the next restructuring of offenses, but to link and substantiate some approaches to understanding the causes of youth crime.

If we take a sufficiently long time interval, then we can say something about the general dynamics of crimes. So, for example, the number of registered crimes per 1000 people over the past seven years has changed as follows: - 9.3; 1995 - 15.3; 1996 - 15.0; 1997 - 13.7 (See 1, 199). On the one hand, it is clear that it was precisely in the five years from 1990 to 1995 that a sharp rise in crime occurred, and it can be explained, or at least hypothetically substantiated, by the general state of a country that has experienced the collapse of a certain type of statehood and even, to some extent, a certain type of sociality. This will be a sufficient macro explanation. But the outlined decline - how stable is it and what caused it? There are no simple answers to these questions. It is necessary to introduce some hypotheses, and then test them for some time. We will try to offer our version based on our understanding of the situation with crime in the region in general and youth in particular. It is possible that it will be close enough to reality.

In our opinion, it is impossible to understand adolescent and youth crime correctly, unless we try to understand the world of values ​​of our youth. Such an approach may seem, at first glance, to be very divorced from reality, but in fact, this is the only way, based on deep and not always directly fixed factors, is it possible to understand the subject - in this case, criminality - in essence. And only then fight it, engage in prevention, etc. adequate methods.

The question of values ​​as the basis of a person's being, including a young person, is always a worldview question. Values ​​- these seemingly invisible ideal formations, the existence of which an individual often does not even suspect, unless he specifically thinks about, in fact very rigidly define the boundaries of real life, introducing restrictions or permits for certain types of activity, relationships, etc. etc. Moreover, the values ​​are different - moral, aesthetic, political, material and spiritual, and others. And all quite specifically determine the motivation and forms of human behavior.

At one time, in one of the studies in the city of Orenburg (headed by AI Yarkin), when studying the problem of child neglect, typical groups of adolescents with antisocial orientations were identified. It has been established in great detail and precisely that in such adolescents: 1) material problems concern criminogenic adolescents more than average ones, and the stronger the criminogenic orientation of the group, the more significant the dominance of material problems over others; 2) the stronger the criminogenic orientation of the adolescent group, the more clearly expressed the focus on increasing the material well-being of not just their social microenvironment (family, yard), but also their personal material wealth. That is, there is a kind of selfish deformation of the personality, material needs dominate over spiritual needs not only at school (like the average teenager), but also in the yard. In criminogenic adolescents, the prevalence of the consumer attitude towards life over the actively transforming attitude is increasing (2, 17).

These findings were made in 1992 for young people between 13 and 17 years old. That is, if, taking into account the findings, we assume (while not taking into account the macro situation in the region and in the country) that with the deterioration of the financial situation of certain groups of the population, adolescent crime will increase - even only due to the internal attitudes of young people themselves and no more Moreover, even then we can already say that in the next 3-4 years, juvenile delinquency will increase. Because such a deterioration in the concrete historical realities of our society is not difficult to predict, and she has already formed this type of value orientation, and it will lead this part of the youth to the dock. We open the official statistics - and we find: the rapid growth of youth crime from 1993 to 1996. And also, further, in 1997, - on the contrary, the drop in the overall level of crimes committed below the 1992 level.

It is possible not to connect these events in any way, such a coincidence can be considered accidental, but it can be assumed that then, in 1992, a group of researchers empirically identified one of the main reasons for the growth of juvenile delinquency while the situation in the material sphere persisted or worsened. Now, in the last year and a half, when the financial situation of the majority of the population has stabilized, the situation in criminal behavior is beginning to acquire the character of “normal criminality”. But with a different "face" - due to the changed sociality. And if earlier in the minds of all criminogenic groups of adolescents, such a value as physical strength was put forward in the first place, which, in our opinion, caused the growth of hooliganism in previous years: - 99; 1993 - 171; 1994 - 242; 1995 - 211, etc., then in the current situation, in all things, there is a change of priorities. Most likely, the principle “there is power - no mind is needed” is no longer valid, which is indirectly evidenced by the figure that fixes the fall in the scale of hooliganism in 1997 - 132 cases.

The structure of the criminal world and consciousness has changed: criminal individualism of a hooligan style is giving way to groups of a different type, where not everything is decided by simple physical force, and the criminal law, life according to the rules and regulations, according to the charter of the zone acquires a special role. And it is no coincidence that in 1997 the number of crimes committed by adolescents who had previously been brought to criminal responsibility increased by 12.5%. 74% of convicted teenagers in 1997 committed crimes in a group, of which every second case - with the participation of adults (2, 79). This part of the youth has already passed their "universities", while acquiring their own concepts of good and evil. The mechanism of asocialization or asocial adaptation has passed into the firm hands of the “older generation”. Therefore, it is not yet necessary to hope that this indicator will change greatly in the future. The system can only be opposed by the system, and in legal socialization we do not have such a system either.

But, fortunately, for certain social groups the environment has changed materially for the better, and therefore there will no longer be the former large adolescent nourishment from the so-called middle strata. Crime will be fueled precisely by the so-called “difficult” adolescents from families of social risk, as well as from families that cannot be classified as dysfunctional according to the standard method, but where intra-family relations are pushing young people towards criminal behavior. These families, if you highlight their main features, are characterized by a low balance of the entire system of family relations, as well as not-warm enough relations with the mother, deformed relations with the father. All this ultimately leads to the fact that in such families, as a rule, parents and children have neither common interests, nor interesting useful things, hobbies, etc.

In other words, youth crime, in our opinion, is beginning to acquire a pronounced, if not yet class, then stratum-group character. And the more normal forms of civil society our society moves to, the more predictable and predictable the situation with crime and its varieties will be. All over the “well-fed” world there is a variety of criminality, and they set the task first to “curb” it, which means clearly differentiate it, and only then take it under control. We are still far from such a “normal” state of affairs with the criminal world, although not as far as before.

These were approaches and attempts to identify some common causes of juvenile delinquency. Although, of course, if you again look at the general picture of registered crimes per 1000 population in the regions of the region, it can be revealed that the degree of saturation of the population with criminals behaved differently: yes, there has been a widespread jump in five years across all territories of the region, but somewhere it amounted to 2-3% (Adamovsky, Krasnogvardeisky districts), and somewhere it exceeded ten (Orenburgsky, Ponomarevsky); in some places it has decreased over the past two years (Matveevsky, Ponomarevsky), and somewhere it continues to increase (Gaysky, Dombarovsky) (1, 199). So the average figure obscures the problem rather than reveals it.

It is quite clear that a special typological study of regional crime is needed, which, albeit in hindsight, would explain the changes that have taken place in the criminal world. Then the picture of what will happen with youth crime will become clear. Perhaps the society has already reached its limit of criminal saturation and a backlash will begin, or maybe the peaks of the Orenburg region with its twenty-odd crimes per 1000 population are still ahead of us, to which some Adamovsky or Oktyabrsky district will have to “adjust”. So far, not a single qualified expert will give a strictly substantiated answer to this question.

At the same time, with regard to youth, looking at these discrepancies in figures, it can be argued with a reasonable degree of certainty that youth crime will increase in areas with relatively low crime rates. Let us try to explain this by relying not so much on the previous study of the adolescent group of young people, but on the study of older age groups of young people, including, of course, the younger.

In this regard, we are primarily interested in such a practically significant activity-related attitude of a person to the world, as the ability, desire and ability to put forward our own goals, subordinating them all our life activities, and at the same time acceptance or rejection of those goals and means of achieving them that society offers to a young person. ...

In each specific society, at a certain stage of its development, there are simultaneously several differently oriented types of activity. People are usually included in one or another of them. In general, the spectrum of positions on the question of the relationship between ends and means, individual and social, is given by Merton's typology, which we used to identify which activity orientations prevail among modern Orenburg youth today.

It must be said that the boundaries of these specific groups are quite stable and are manifested at the empirical level in the form of preference for certain life strategies of behavior that can be observed at the everyday level. Therefore, if, after a sociological analysis, there is clarity about what our young people are, what can be expected of them and what to demand, then it becomes clear that all these typologies are not inventions of sociologists cut off from life, but real instruments for measuring social dynamics of youth.

To begin with, here are the general characteristics of those positions that were measured in the current study:

conformists - my own goals coincide with public ones, and to achieve them I use only legal and socially accepted means;

retretists - I follow public goals as if they were my own, but in achieving them I will act by my own means, even illegal and prohibited by society;

ritualists - I do not agree with the goals proclaimed by society, but in achieving my own goals I will use generally accepted, legal means;

innovators - I am not at all inclined to share the goals of our society, and in achieving my own goals I will use my own means, including those prohibited by society;

rebels - to this day, society proclaims stupid goals and offers unsuitable means of achieving them, it is necessary to focus on completely different goals and develop new ways to achieve them.

In a normally functioning society, when social processes proceed without any significant leaps, completely certain types of behavior patterns prevail. In periods of increasing social tension and economic turmoil, completely different, but also certain types come to the fore. We can be convinced of this ourselves; for this it is enough to compare and contrast some data from previous sociological studies of Orenburg youth. But first, let us give a general picture of the distribution of youth in the Orenburg region according to Merton's typology. Today we have the following picture:

Table 1

Overall rating Urban Rural

Conformists 16.4 15.9 17.1

Retretists 9.9 10.2 9.5

Ritualists 27.8 26.9 29.1

Innovators 10.4 11.7 8.4

Rebels 15.0 14.9 15.3

In general, the positions of urban and rural youth differ, but not very much, and the apparent discrepancies are quite explainable both by the way of life of urban and rural youth, respectively, and by the processes of change in socio-economic relations in the country and in the region as a whole. In the aspect that interests us, it is necessary to reckon in its pure form with the positions of retretists, innovators and rebels. They, as it were, a priori declare their readiness to break the law. In these cases, we have, as a first approximation, the following figures: for the city this sum of figures is 36.8 and for the village 33.2. Therefore, only in its pure form do we, as it were, have the right to hope that the crime rate in the countryside will be lower. It is not necessary to guess how accurately as a percentage, because an unambiguously active position, although declared, does not turn into an action, all the more illegal. Unfortunately, we do not have access to official statistics that would allow us, at least indirectly, to verify our assumption, because the transfer of this hypothesis to all crime statistics, including average indicators, levels everything out at the expense of older age groups. Let's hope that new forms of crime accounting will someday make it possible to verify this hypothesis.

However, let's look at the dynamics of these groups over the past five years, taking into account of course that the samples were different, but in 1992 and 1993 only urban youth were represented.

table 2

1992 1993 1997

Conformists 8.8 11.6 15.9

Retretists 12.3 8.6 10.2

Ritualists 20.6 21.9 26.9

Innovators 7.5 18.9 11.7

Rebels 27.8 10.6 14.9

The time lag of five years very clearly and vividly demonstrates the significant changes that have occurred in the activity orientations of young people. The Rebels drastically reduced their rates and the Conformists and Ritualists rate increased significantly. And this means that in the life of our society, quite definite, and to some extent acceptable for young people, goals of social development and metal-building have really begun to emerge. This older generation can afford to compare how it was before and how it has become now, and for young people as a special social group, such comparisons are least characteristic, they accept and live this reality as the only given, and in this, undoubtedly, they are right. Just as history does not know the subjunctive mood, so young people live primarily in the present, often do not think deeply about either the past or the future. But more on that specifically below.

Let us now look at the total value of the three groups highlighted above: in 1993 we have a total sum for three groups - 38.1%, and in 1997 - 36.8%. It turns out that theoretically we should have a fall in youth, including adolescent, crime. If we extrapolate the data obtained, taking into account the value of rural youth groups (the sum of which is 33.2%, and the average for the region then turns out to be 35.6%) to real crime statistics, then here we really find a drop in the crime rate: if in 1993 the total number of crimes 2634 were committed, then in 1997 - 2413, which, respectively, in% share in total crime was 14.7% and 10.5%.

Another tempting and very plausible hypothesis arises about the possibility of carrying out some kind of even quantitative analysis. For example, this one. A 1.3% decrease in the proportion of retreatists, innovators and rebels among young people leads to a 4.2% decrease in the proportion of juvenile delinquency. But, unfortunately, these single measurements allow us to build only such, albeit bold, but hypotheses, however, so far it is impossible to confirm or refute them.

One thing is undoubtedly clear, that if we go from the opposite direction and judge the possible level of crime by conformists, then of course, there is a qualitative connection here. For conformists are, to a certain extent, a litmus test for determining the well-being of society: if their number increases, then there is reason to believe that crime may decline, and if we take into account the same effect from the emergence and increase of ritualists, then we can say that we are close approached one of the social recipes for crime prevention among young people. It can be summarized as follows: fight to increase the number of conformists and ritualists among young people, and you will have a steady decline in juvenile delinquency. Although in its pure form, of course, the limit of the significance of these two groups will come. But so far no one has purposefully engaged in this work, and therefore this recipe again has a theoretical character, even if there are sufficient grounds to say that its implementation can give a real social anti-criminal effect.

In detailing this idea, it is important to emphasize some more nuances arising from the characteristics of these positions. Often they associate disagreement with the main goals of society, on the one hand, and a predisposition to commit any illegal actions for this reason, on the other hand. However, the results of the survey actually showed that this view is an oversimplification of the situation. Thus, among those who disagree with the goals of society, only every 5th respondent expressed a willingness to use illegal methods, while among those who generally accept public goals, it turns out that there are much more such - every third. That is, those who agree with common goals are more radical in achieving them. The problem of the discrepancy between goals and means is clearly expressed here. It should also be noted that although in this respect there are more dissatisfied than satisfied (53% versus 26%), nevertheless, this dissatisfaction is “passive”. Most of them are ready to stay within the law.

It is interesting to trace the connection of the indicated factor of readiness to resort to illegal actions with the real behavior of young people. Dissatisfaction with the ways in which society is trying to achieve its goals, according to the survey, is rather latent and carries only a potential tendency to violate the law. So, if on average in the country every year, out of 10 thousand adolescents, 250 people commit crimes, i.e. 2.5% (3.10), then the indicated predisposition to committing them was shown, according to the survey, 20.39%. In reality, in 1997 in the Orenburg region this figure was 1.6 in the group from 14 to 17 years old. At the same time, it should be noted that both real and potential growth of violations of the law is opposed by a number of factors in the minds of young people themselves. These factors include the fact that among the problems that cause the greatest concern among young people themselves, in the first places they also distinguish such factors as the growth of crime (66%) and corruption in government structures (41%).

This also includes preferences in the choice of measures that can influence the development of events in the country. More often than others, they mentioned the execution of laws (35%), participation in elections to government bodies (27%) and other legal methods. Only 25% believe that an ordinary citizen today cannot influence the development of events in the country in any way.

Among the reasons why young people often give preference to illegal means of solving their problems, one can obviously name an elementary ignorance about their own rights and the existing legislation that directly affects young people. Thus, 65%, according to their own self-assessments, are not sufficiently familiar or do not know at all (34%) about the laws of the Russian Federation in the Orenburg region regarding youth. At the same time, only 5% of the respondents believe that their rights are fully protected. Thus, the majority of young people have little idea of ​​how their rights are legally protected, but despite this, the majority still thinks that this is done badly.

A great influence on the commission of crimes among young people is exerted by their susceptibility to group influence. This is evidenced by the fact that more than half of all crimes are of a group nature. Against this background, it looks alarming that young people show very little interest in relatively “harmless” group associations. Those 15% who nevertheless showed such interest, to a greater extent associate it with sports hobbies. The rest, including religious beliefs, do not go beyond 5%, with a few exceptions for musical preferences (6%). On the whole, 63% did not consider themselves to be in any way of group unification at all. Taking into account the well-known craving of adolescents specifically for the group form of self-expression, we have to state here the presence of a certain “vacuum”.

The last thesis is confirmed by other digital indicators. We can talk about a certain lack of demand for the existing willingness (at least in words) of young people to take part in the work of councils capable of representing the interests of young people at the local level. 37% are ready to personally take part in the work of such bodies, if they are available in a particular city or village. And only 20% would refuse such participation.

Thus, given the passivity of youth participation in spontaneously emerging interest groups (this does not include criminal interests), with an appropriate approach, it would be possible to involve young people in organized work. Better than her involvement in organized crime anyway. It is indicative that according to the survey it is possible to identify the most desirable forms and structures of organization, among which are more often called committees for youth affairs (44%), legal and legal (32%) centers, leisure institutions and associations of interests (29%). The last figure suggests that the desire to participate in organized forms of leisure is greater than it is realized spontaneously.

The feeling of patriotism still lingering, which is expressed in pride for their country (42%), for the place where they were born (52%), for belonging to Russian citizenship (48%), deserves some attention. At the same time, there are more of those who do not regret being born and living in their own country than those who think differently (43% and 30%). On this basis, it is also possible to develop socialization activities of a socially acceptable nature. In other words, our data indicate that criminalization of some young people can be fought with confidence, knowing clearly where to organize an attack on them, including through constant monitoring of the well-being of young people.

But at the same time, there is a clear deficit in well-organized forms of work in this direction. This also speaks of a certain lack of demand for the activity of young people and suggests that this factor will be used in one way or another in their own interests by both criminal structures and politicians of different levels and persuasions.

Chapter 2. Characteristics of informal adolescent groups

Above, we examined what are the unfavorable conditions of family and school upbringing, leading to deformation of the personality of a minor. The family and school most often have a so-called indirect desocializing influence, as a result of which maladjusted adolescents cease to assimilate the moral values ​​cultivated by the main institutions of socialization, and are guided, first of all, by the norms and values ​​of informal criminal groups. Thus, these groups ultimately play a major role in shaping the personality of juvenile offenders, acting as their reference groups and preferred communication environment. Hence, it is no coincidence that most of the crimes are committed by minors in groups. In particular, as noted by K. Ye. Igoshev, “about 75% of the total number of minors under study have committed crimes in groups. At the same time, mercenary crimes, as well as crimes in the form of socially dangerous acts, are committed within the most stable and long-standing groups. In general, it would not be an exaggeration to say: juvenile delinquency is a group crime. "

And then the same author rightly notes that the very facts of the formation of groups of adolescents and young men are a natural process. Indeed, it is known that a teenager is characterized by an increased need for communication with peers; adolescents tend to listen to the opinion of their peers more than to the opinion of adults, parents and teachers. This increased desire for communication is explained by the age-related patterns of mental development in adolescence, the main psychological neoplasm of which is self-awareness, which is formed in communication, in interaction with others like themselves.

Consequently, the danger is fraught not in general with adolescent communication and informal adolescent groups, but only in vehicles in which the criminalization of minors takes place. To find out what these groups are, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on the characteristics of informal adolescent groups.

According to one of the leading researchers of adolescent informal communication, I. S, Polonsky, about 85% of adolescents and young men go through spontaneous group communication. At the same time, the author believes that the organized school team and spontaneous communication of adolescents differ in a number of parameters. A spontaneous group is prone to self-isolation, extreme isolation from adults, primarily from parents and school. In such groups, a narrow-group morality arises, which in a distorted form represents the "adult" norms and values ​​so desired by adolescents.

By the nature of the social orientation, I.S.Polonsky divides spontaneous groups into three types:

prosocial or socially positive;

asocial, standing apart from the main social problems, closed in the system of narrow group values;

antisocial - socially negative groups, 3/5, that is, most of the studied adolescent associations belong, according to the author, to prosocial, that is, socially positive and close to this type of associations.

Among the pro-social groups, it is necessary to highlight the amateur informal groups of young people who carry a socially significant constructive and transformative beginning, have their own goals, objectives, and program of action. These can be ecological, cultural, socio-political, conservation-historical and other programs that voluntarily unite young like-minded people. As some researchers note, the "breeding ground" for criminal teenage groups is by no means an amateur movement of informal youth, but intermediate leisure groups ("fans", "rockers", "lyuers", "metalheads", sports fans, "breakers", " sweatshirts ", etc.), which are formed on the basis of the commonality of their aesthetic tastes, adherence to certain musical trends, musical, sports godfathers, newfangled dances, extravagant fashion, etc. The reason giving rise to such closed group associations is often excessive regulation, bureaucratization of schools, cultural institutions, art, the absence of teenage and youth leisure centers and associations of interests, a "prohibitive" attitude towards youth fashion, and reassurance. Hence, the best educational and prophylactic means, preventing the growth of such "taste", leisure associations into asocial and antisocial groups, is the "legalization" of youth hobbies, providing an opportunity for free choice of leisure activities, opportunities for realizing their tastes and interests in teenage and youth clubs, centers where the guys can feel quite autonomous and independent.

A special group is informal youth associations, where the integrating, uniting core is the way of life, one's own morality, spiritual values, a kind of subculture, paraphernalia, slang. Such associations and communities are built on the denial of generally accepted morality, on opposing it to a group, often very extravagant subculture. These are, first of all, hippies, punks and highlifes. If hippies are characterized by complete freedom, including freedom of sexual relations, built on equality and tolerance, rejection of any over-organization and regulation, then punks have relations in the community on a more rigid principle: internal hierarchy is allowed and takes place, the ritual of "omission", cynical attitude towards girls "a disdain for the law and the criminal code, a decrease in the value of one's own life.

High-lifeists promoting a "beautiful life", exquisite manners, a luxurious lifestyle, well-ordered life, connections, career aspirations, also oppose their group subculture to the people around them, whom they classify as second class, trying in every possible way to limit their contacts with "grayness", " cattle ".

It would be wrong to see potential criminals behind every, even the most extravagant youth group, to whom special preventive measures should be applied.

However, it should be noted that group isolation, corporatism, isolation of informal youth groups "not included in the system of broader social relations, creates the preconditions for unfavorable dynamics of group social orientation," transformation ", the development of pro-social, leisure associations into asocial, antisocial groups. , the creation of ample opportunities for the implementation of various taste preferences in the field of leisure, the independent participation of members of youth groups in the organization of their leisure, sports, artistic, musical and other creativity can be attributed to general prevention measures that prevent the possible criminalization of informal groups.

It is especially worth dwelling on the characteristics of asocial groups in which criminalization directly occurs.

First of all, these groups are mainly attended by "difficult" teenagers who are isolated in their classrooms and, in addition, brought up in dysfunctional families. The leaders in these groups are adolescents with a narrowly egoistic orientation. Thus, in asocial groups, due to their isolation from adults and class groups, their own narrow-group values ​​and subordination to a leader with an egoistic orientation, serious prerequisites arise for the criminalization of minors.

This kind of asocial groups, in which juvenile crimes are not yet committed, but as if ripening, are also called criminogenic groups in the literature. So, A. I. Dolgova believes that "criminogenic groups are an environment that forms and stimulates the motivation of antisocial behavior." Members of criminogenic groups, in contrast to criminal ones, do not have a clear orientation towards committing crimes, the norms of criminogenic groups, although they contradict the official ones, still do not strictly define the behavior of their members as criminals. They, as a rule, create situations of conflict with socially positive moral requirements, less often with legal ones. Therefore, members of criminogenic groups commit most crimes in problematic, conflict situations or favorable conditions for this,

In turn, criminal groups are characterized by a clear focus on criminal behavior, they are characterized by illegal norms and prepared, organized crime. This kind of criminal groups of minors are quite rare.

Informal adolescent groups are not some kind of static, unchanging socio-psychological formations.

They are characterized by their own group dynamics "a certain development is inherent, as a result of which groups with an asocial orientation can develop into criminogenic or even criminal groups. I.P. , to distinguish three levels of development of criminogenic groups.

1. Precriminal or asocial groups of adolescents with an orientation towards antisocial activity. These are spontaneous, spontaneous informal groups at the place of residence. They are characterized by aimless pastime, situational socially disapproving behavior: gambling, drunkenness, minor offenses, etc. The members of the group in their entirety do not commit offenses, since for this they still lack organization and cohesion, although individual offenses may already be committed. The main activity of such groups is communication, which is based on meaningless pastime.

2. Unstable or criminogenic groups are characterized by the criminal orientation of group value orientations. Drunkenness, debauchery, money-grubbing, striving for an easy life are becoming the norm in these groups. Group members move from minor, non-punishable offenses to more socially dangerous actions. However, there is no prearranged and organized criminal activity in these groups yet, but there is already a tendency to commit crimes by some of its members. According to AR Ratinov's terminology, these groups are closest to "companies of offenders.

3. Stable criminal or criminal groups. These are stable associations of adolescents, formed for the joint commission of any crimes. Most often these are thefts, robberies, robberies, hooliganism, violent crimes, etc. They already have a clear organizational structure. The "leading center" stands out - the leader, "preferred", performers. In groups there is a system of unwritten laws "norms and values, which are carefully hidden from others. Non-observance or violation of these" laws "leads to the disintegration of the group, therefore violators of the" convention "are prosecuted and punished. In groups there is a strong dependence of members on each other, the basis of which Therefore, the quantitative composition of such groups is more or less constant. The crime plan is developed and approved in advance, roles are assigned, the timing of the "criminal" operations is scheduled. Often the members of the group are armed with melee weapons. All this makes such groups the most dangerous, A. R. Ratinov classifies such associations as “gangs,” and armed ones as “gangs,” although there are no big differences in the plans for their organization and activities. of crimes registers such formations.

Thus, as evidenced by various studies, spontaneously emerging informal adolescent groups, firstly, differ significantly in the degree of their criminalization, in the degree of involvement in criminal activity, which cannot be ignored in preventive and preventive activities. And, secondly, they are very dynamic in their internal structure, have their own inherent patterns of development and criminalization, knowledge and understanding of which are necessary for the successful prevention of group juvenile delinquency.

First of all, in criminal groups of minors, attention is drawn to the fact that most often they were created not for criminal activity, but by chance, for a joint pastime. Thus, according to researchers, 52% of mercenary and 63% of aggressive crimes were committed by groups that were organized not for criminal activity. But even specially organized groups committed most crimes without prior preparation.

Such disorganization, situationality in the commission of crimes, which characterizes a significant part of criminogenic teenage groups, forces us to carefully examine those socio-psychological mechanisms that, as it were, spontaneously lead them to criminal activity.

To do this, first of all, it is necessary to consider in more detail the main characteristics of these groups, their composition, who is in them, what are their norms and other features of the group subculture, how they are managed, and leadership processes take place.

Chapter 3. Socio-psychological characteristics of adolescent crime groups

The study of criminogenic teenage groups over the past 10 - 15 years has been undertaken by criminologists and psychologists in various regions of the country. The results of these studies were covered in the works of IL, Bashkatov, AI Dolgova, KE Igoshev, AE Taras and others. A number of collections and collective monographs are devoted to this problem.

Under the author's guidance, in order to study group norms and values, the attributes of a group subculture, leadership processes and other socio-psychological phenomena that determine group cohesion and criminalization of asocial teenage groups, 15 such groups were also studied in the process of educational and preventive work.

It should be noted that the results of studies carried out over the years in various regions of the country indicate fairly stable and homogeneous processes that characterize group dynamics in criminogenic teenage groups.

First, attention is drawn to the fact that these groups are most often represented by male adolescents, less often have a mixed composition, and even less often consist of girls.

Thus, according to IP Bashkatov, among the studied teenage groups who committed crimes, 74% were male, 6% were female, and 20% were mixed. According to researchers, 96% of juvenile delinquents are male.

A very alarming trend has emerged in relation to female crime. On the one hand, there is an increase in crime among underage girls, and on the other, facts of a cynical attitude towards girls in mixed teenage groups (the presence of so-called "common girls", group sex, attracting girls from street companies to participate in the rape of their friends and acquaintances) ... The consequences of female cynicism and open cynical attitude towards young women are especially detrimental to the social and spiritual health of both modern and subsequent generations.

What are the members of criminal groups by occupation? Of the surveyed juvenile criminals before conviction, 31% - worked, 28% studied in general education schools, 29% - in vocational schools, 12% did not study and did not work. At the same time, truancy, violations of discipline, and dishonesty were typical for both working and students of juvenile offenders.

Thus, 30% of working adolescents convicted of crimes have already changed their place of work, despite their short length of service. 40% of them did not like the job, 41% were not satisfied with the salary they received, 60% did not take part in the social life of the collective. If, at the same time, we take into account that a significant part of working adolescents are, first of all, in the past, pedagogically neglected students who at one time got out of the influence of the school, it will become obvious that this category of minors was actually outside the zone of action of such important institutions of socialization, which are educational and labor collectives.

Teenage delinquent students are characterized by low academic performance, unwillingness to learn; 39% of the surveyed studied poorly, 49% - satisfactory, and only 12% - good. The consequence of poor studies, as noted above, is a prestigious dissatisfaction, a decrease in the reference importance of the classroom team, and a way out of its influence.

Thus; even for those adolescents who were employed at the place of study or work, a weakening of connection with their teams was characteristic, as a result of which their socializing influence was significantly reduced, and the assimilation of social experience was mainly carried out in criminogenic groups or under their direct influence. Moreover, the influence of such groups acquired a decisive importance for adolescents without specific occupations, which amounted to 12%, that is, almost every eighth person from the convicts.

The families of minors, which, as we noted above, are characterized by functional inconsistency, inability to carry out educational functions, could not significantly resist the criminogenic influence of groups. And, in addition, a number of families (immoral and asocial) have a direct desocializing influence in the form of direct patterns of immoral behavior or acquisitive and antisocial attitudes and beliefs.

The actual exclusion of minors from the system of positively oriented relations in their teams at the place of work and study leads to the fact that in asocial spontaneous teenage groups their own narrowly corporate morality begins to form, signs of their group subculture appear, emphasizing belonging to this particular group, their own hierarchy of intragroup relations is being formed , their leaders are nominated, defining the internal laws of these groups.

Such groups isolated from the outside world with a narrowly corporate morality are easily susceptible to the negative influence of more experienced, experienced criminals who infect minors with the false romance of the underworld, a sense of permissiveness and an easy attitude to moral values, law, and life.

KE Igoshev notes that about 1/3 of juvenile crimes are committed under the direct influence of adults, often with previous convictions. These persons involve adolescents and young men in criminal activities in a variety of, sometimes very clever ways. According to selected data, about 32% of cases of involvement of minors in criminal activity were carried out with the help of "profitable" mercenary offers, "comradely" requests and obligations, flattering persuasions, advice, admonitions. About 30% - through the gradual introduction of adolescents and young men to drinking together, and sometimes to lecherous actions. Threats and intimidation, deception and promises, as well as beatings and sometimes torture can be used. According to the same author, almost one in seven in the group of juvenile offenders was an adult.

The study showed that 42.1% of juvenile crime groups are organized with the participation of adults, that is, these groups covered about half of all juveniles involved in criminal activity. Most often, juveniles are involved in crimes between the ages of 18 and 25, many of whom have had previous convictions. So, according to the selective results of the same studies, adults who involve minors in criminal activity at the age of 18 - 25 years old accounted for 61.4%, 26 - 30 years old - 19.4%, over 30 years old - 19.2%.

Of the adult instigators and organizers, 44.1% were previously convicted (once - 57.1%, twice - 28.5%, three times or more - 14.4%). In addition, among the juvenile members of criminal groups, 2.1% were previously in prison, 2.3% were in special educational institutions.

Thus, one of the ways to criminalize adolescent groups is the influence of adult and experienced criminals who are the organizers of the criminal activities of groups with an asocial orientation. The prerequisites for this are narrow corporate isolation, isolation of asocial groups from the influence of adults, parents of teachers, loss of connection with collectives at the place of work and study.

However, a minority of asocial adolescent groups pass this path of criminalization, while most of them are criminalized, "ripening" to criminal activity without the direct influence of adult criminals, due to internal socio-psychological mechanisms and patterns that determine their criminological development.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of these internal socio-psychological mechanisms of criminalization of spontaneously formed adolescent groups, we conducted a special study of several asocial groups of juvenile offenders registered with the IDN for various minor offenses, alcohol consumption, running away from home, etc.

A kind of certification of these groups was carried out, specifying their composition, meeting place, preferred occupations, group norms and values. Particular attention was paid to the study of leadership processes, how the internal management of such groups is carried out and their kind of "cementing", cobble together, that is, ultimately, intragroup cohesion and stability are ensured.

First of all, in the field of view of the researchers came not so much criminal and criminogenic "as antisocial adolescent groups, representing the primary stage on the path of criminalization and desocialization of minors. The surveyed groups consisted of 7-10 adolescents aged 12-14 years, some of whom already By occupation, these were, as a rule, "mixed groups of students from schools, vocational schools, working adolescents. Groups, companies were united rather on the basis of a common place of residence. Other, also important, common features that united the children into these groups were academic failure, poor academic performance, conflict relationships in the classroom, with teachers.

The gathering places of such companies, as a rule, are permanent, far from crowded places (basements, attics, cemeteries, new buildings, remote squares, etc.).

The most preferred activities are playing cards, singing thieves' songs with the guitar, walking aimlessly in the streets, drinking, obscene talk about women, and anecdotes. They discuss mainly conflicts with teachers, masters, plans of revenge against "enemies" from other yards and streets, their own sexual experience if it took place under cynical circumstances.

They avoid talking in a group about relationships with parents and about parents, about family complications, and the life plans of individual adolescents are not discussed. Almost gratuitous fights often break out both between members of the same group and between different groups. Fighting, in fact, is the main way to resolve conflicts. Fights with other companies arise mainly from the desire to prove belonging to a certain group community, to consolidate this influence in a certain territory.

In groups, nicknames and nicknames are cultivated, which most often come from the surname or emphasize the psychophysiological characteristics of adolescents; nicknames to a certain extent also express the hierarchy in group relations. For example, the nicknames "Count", "King", "Goga", as a rule, indicate the privileged position of adolescents in the group. There may be quite offensive nicknames that reinforce the general dismissive attitude towards the teenager,

The very fact of the widespread prevalence of nicknames in such companies testifies to a rather superficial, shallow communication of adolescents, a tendency to stereotyping, inattention to the individual characteristics and the inner world of their comrades. them have certain social roles in intragroup communication. Nicknames also serve to consolidate group isolation, acting as a way of socio-psychological fencing, isolation from others. Isolation from the outside world and intragroup integration are facilitated by group moral norms and moral values, which apply only to members of the group, regardless of the rest of the environment. Fidelity in friendship is understood as mutual responsibility, courage - as readiness for hooligan antics, senseless risk, honesty - as the ability not to let down your comrades. These are the main qualities that make up the intra-group code of honor, the violation of which is punished quite severely.

Group integration, the formation of a sense of "we", a sense of belonging to a given community of people, are carried out, first of all, by opposing themselves to those around them, both adults and other teenage groups and companies from neighboring streets, courtyards, and districts. Relations between groups, as a rule, are hostile, there are frequent and essentially unreasonable conflicts "resolved by violent fights.

All leaders and leaders play a special role in uniting the group, in maintaining its stability and strength. In all informal teenage groups, leadership processes are quite clearly traced. The authority of a leader rests not so much on fear of physical strength as on respect for intellect, experience, "experience", and strong-willed qualities. However, the leader's moral authority is also supported by physical strength, and the leader himself, as a rule, does not participate in reprisals, while using the services of his entourage, playing the role of "vassals".

As an illustration of how leadership processes develop in criminogenic teenage groups, we can cite a very curious example that emerged as a result of a retrospective study of a criminal group of minors, which, in a fairly short time, in three to four months, from a teenage the company independently, without the participation and influence of adults, has grown into a dangerous criminal group that has committed a number of serious crimes. The group consisted of ten fourteen to sixteen-year-old adolescents, students of the same school, acquaintances from joint study and place of residence. It existed for about six months, choosing for itself the basement of one of the residential buildings as a permanent gathering place.

The study took place during the investigation period, and therefore, as the criterion by which the sociometric survey was conducted, the question was chosen: "With whom did you want to get together in a corrective labor colony?" In the course of this poll, an adolescent leader who received the absolute majority of elections emerged, and a sociometric "star" with a negative sign - a teenager who was not liked by the weight and would not want any further communication with him. Both of these "stars" turned out to be the closest inseparable friends, as if they formed the psychological core of the group. They were the most active participants and initiators of all serious crimes, showing an enviable ingenuity in hiding the traces of crimes.

The leader turned out to be a 16-year-old teenager named "The Old Man", who was not distinguished by special physical strength, but with a fairly well-developed intellect, with restrained manners and an amazing ability for accurate, objective self-assessment and critical assessment of his comrades. Friends noted restraint in him, he never raised his voice, did not enter into fights, knew how to listen carefully, it was possible to talk to him "mentally", which, at the same time, did not prevent him from showing extreme cruelty and aggressiveness in crimes. One should not think that in relation to his friends he was guided by a feeling of affection, rather, it was a calculation, a stake on winning leadership rights by making up for the communication deficit that these guys experienced at school and at home.

However, leadership rights were asserted not only on a good basis. Not possessing sufficient physical strength, the leader himself never went into a direct clash with the members of the group, but used for this his physically developed, but not authoritative among the guys, a friend who paid for patronage with slavish devotion and willingness to serve without hesitation.

Although the guys were attached to their group and spent almost all their free time in it, this does not mean that they felt a sense of psychological security there, and in the group they were bound by real companionship. On the contrary, in a more or less veiled form, relations here were built on the basis of the cruel subordination of the weak to the strong, who, in turn, sought to suppress the dignity of the weaker, force them to obey and serve themselves. This kind of relationship between the guys is clearly shown in the story "Composition" by V. Yakimenko. A cruel, aggressive teenager named "Demyan" with the help of older friends one by one subdues his classmates, brutally beats them, makes them humiliate to serve themselves. And this continues as long as the guys are conciliatory indifferently looking at what is happening and do not join their efforts to repel Demyan.

The promotion of an aggressive egoistic leader in such isolated from the outside world and focused on asocial manifestations and asocial activity of adolescent groups is no coincidence, just as it is no coincidence that relations here are built on a cruel hierarchy, the subordination of the weak to the strong.

Domestic psychologists, in particular, A. V. Petrovsky and his students, proved that "the central link of the group structure is formed by the activity itself, its substantive socio-economic and socio-political characteristics." That is, the nature of the activity in which the collective, the group is included, determines the nature of the interpersonal relations developing in the group, the value-normative regulators of these relations, ultimately, determine the personal qualities of the informal leader who is nominated for the leadership of this group. It is known that spontaneously emerging teenage groups at first are not directly involved in criminal activity. They get together for entertainment purposes, with the sole purpose of spending time together. Here is how FS Makhov describes the preferred activities in the sphere of leisure in asocial groups: 1) drinking; 2) songs with a guitar; 3) going to the cinema and walking aimlessly on the streets; 4) listening to tape recordings and records; 5) hiking.

However, for adolescents isolated in their educational collectives, these spontaneously organized leisure groups turn out to be the main and often the only environment where the most important needs of adolescence in communication and self-affirmation are realized, without the implementation of which it is difficult to form the main psychological neoplasm of a teenager - self-consciousness.

In the above chapters, we noted that each age stage of socialization is characterized by its own leading institutions, mechanisms and methods. For a teenager, as we remember, the leading mechanism of socialization is the reference group, the method of socialization is the reference-significant activity, that is, the activity on the basis of which the teenager self-asserts itself in the conditions of the reference group of peers. In turn, the preferable communication environment, where he has the opportunity to assert himself, to win a sufficiently high authority and prestige among his peers, becomes a reference group, as well as a referential-significant activity.

Having lost in fact an internal connection with a positively oriented team, formed on the basis of socially significant activities, a teenager seeks to realize his need for self-affirmation in conditions of empty pastime in asocial forms of behavior, drinking, daring, hooligan antics, in false courage and disregard for the prohibitions of adults, moral norms, rights. Such asocial activity becomes, in fact, a referential-significant activity of a teenager, which plays a decisive role both in the formation of his personality and determines interpersonal relations and intragroup normative regulators in adolescent groups. Hence, it is obvious that the criminalization of asocial adolescent groups can be carried out independently, without influence from the adult offender, due to unfavorable, distorted conditions of functioning, internal socio-psychological mechanisms and patterns inherent in the process of adolescent socialization.

The action of internal socio-psychological mechanisms - criminalization is significantly aggravated by alcoholization of minors, which leads to the removal of social control, the "shutdown" of perceived behavioral regulators. In addition, with the introduction of minors to drinking, an additional motive for criminal actions arises, consisting in the search for funds to purchase alcohol. Thus, the introduction to alcohol significantly increases the criminal danger of adolescent groups, which, in particular, is evidenced by statistics. The results of the study show that before the moment of joining criminal groups, 94.1% of adults and 78.3% of minors regularly or periodically consumed alcoholic beverages. It was also established that 82% of crimes were committed by them while intoxicated, among those convicted of aggressive crimes, the percentage of those who committed them under the influence of alcohol is above average and reaches 90%.

Obviously, among other educational and preventive measures to combat alcoholization of minors and their parents, an important place should be given in the prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Shifting the efforts of state structures, public organizations, law enforcement agencies from prohibitive measures to social and health-improving measures is the most important condition for combating alcoholization of the population and eradicating drunken crime, including among young people and adolescents.

So, we examined the main ways and factors that determine the criminalization of antisocial teenage groups, in which most of the juvenile crimes are committed. Neutralization of the desocializing influence of criminogenic groups, their timely identification and suppression of group criminal activity is one of the most important tasks in solving the problem of preventing juvenile delinquency.

Chapter 4. Prevention of juvenile group delinquency

It is important to keep this in mind when planning preventive work.

One of the main tasks of the DPPU employees is the timely identification of groups and their registration. All this helps to determine a set of preventive measures in relation to each of the participants.

The very fact of being registered is a means of psychological influence, prompting minors to refrain from illegal actions. It is advisable that when registering it, it was reported, as required by the order, at the place of study, work, residence, etc.

When identifying groups of interest to us, it is necessary to know their characteristic features. Here is some of them:

a) the presence in them of persons with antisocial behavior (convicts who have returned from vocational schools, secondary schools, registered);

b) the presence of adolescents in them who do not study and do not work;

c) the participation of persons who have an unfavorable family situation;

d) the presence of persons with limited interests engaged in aimless pastime.

The totality of these signs, manifested to one degree or another, is characteristic of the overwhelming majority of groups involved in crimes.

Timeliness of accounting depends largely on the ability to identify and study groups at the stage when they do not yet commit crimes, but only organize for this. Completeness of accounting depends on the ability to identify from a large number of mischievous boyish companies those to which you need to pay attention.

As you know, groups are taken into account, in the case when each of the participants can be registered, and if the group does not yet commit illegal actions, but it is obvious that it is on the verge of this, then here through the public and collectives in place study and work need to take proactive measures.

In the process of studying the groups registered, in our opinion, it is necessary to pay attention to the following:

1. The nature and causes of deviations in lifestyle, behavior, attitudes, habits of group members.

2. Possibility of their correction and re-education.

3. Distribution of roles, the nature of the relationship between the participants.

4. Individual characteristics of each member, taking into account which he can be used to reeducate other members of the group.

5. Life goals of each participant.

6. The nature of offenders (before and after registration).

7. Information about the identity of the participants.

8. Favorite gathering places.

9. Conditions of life, education, study, work.

10. Interests in music, technology, literature, etc.

11. Attitude towards the team.

12. Satisfaction with their participation in the group.

13. Information about changes in the character of the group as a result of preventive measures.

Sources of such information can be characteristics from collectives, conversations with relatives, neighbors, etc.

OPPN workers and other police services identify groups:

a) as a result of patrolling;

b) incoming information;

c) during investigative actions;

d) in the process of individual prevention (conversation);

e) as a result of bringing minors to the police station for committing an offense;

f) studying information in the card files, journals of detainees, in preventive affairs and communications of persons registered for preventive affairs and registration and preventive cards.

At the same time, the measures taken have not yet succeeded in curbing the growth of crime and stabilizing the situation. Youth crime is on the rise. The detection rate of such crimes is not improving. The "fork" between the number of identified criminals and the number of convicts is growing.

In the Rostov region, in connection with the growth of group crime, which has mainly objective reasons, additional measures are required to strengthen law enforcement agencies, primarily internal affairs bodies, measures to improve the organization of their activities.

The study showed that the militia today needs modern means of communication and transportation, forensic and operational technology, an increase in the number of staff, and professional personnel. The provision of her with special property, equipment and transport, uniforms in the field is 60-70% of the norm. The workload of employees of the criminal investigation department, DPPPN, investigators, criminologists, district police inspectors significantly exceeds the established standards. A significant part of them work in positions for no more than three years, do not have a legal education.

There are serious shortcomings in the organization of the work of various services and divisions of the internal affairs bodies for the prevention of crimes of minors and young people.

Criminal investigation officers have weak operational positions in the criminal youth environment and criminal and pre-criminal groups of minors, and youth at the place of residence.

The level of educational and preventive work in the departments for the prevention and suppression of juvenile delinquency does not meet modern requirements. Their legal status has not yet been finalized. The law "On Militia" does not mention issues of juvenile delinquency among the tasks and duties of the militia at all. Nor does it say anything about the inspections for juvenile affairs, although in the police system they are the main unit ensuring the prevention of juvenile delinquency.

There is a sense of disunity between the activities of the OPPPN and the criminal investigation apparatus. With the creation of a prevention service in the internal affairs bodies, these units are subordinate to various services. In districts and cities, specialized units of the criminal investigation department for minors were abolished. Such decisions do not correspond to the current trends in juvenile and youth crime. According to our data, young people aged 14-29 make up the overwhelming majority (from 50 to 80%) of the participants in the main types of crimes registered through the criminal investigation department. At the same time, as shown by a survey of convicted minors, more than 60% of adolescents before committing a crime were not registered with the police and no action was taken against them. Similar results have been obtained in other studies. According to K.K.Goryainov and G.I.Filchenkov, 68% of minors involved in group crimes are not identified in a timely manner and are not registered, operational-search measures are not carried out in relation to such persons.1

The reason for the lack of efficiency of their work is often seen by the employees of the DPPPN in the reorientation of their activities, in the fact that they are attracted locally to disclose socially dangerous acts committed by minors who have not reached the age of criminal responsibility, and in fact all crimes committed by adolescents. This opinion is supported by some scientists. Doctor of Law L.L. Kanevsky criticizes the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which imposed on the OPPPN the obligation to perform the actions provided for by the criminal procedure legislation on materials in relation to minors who have committed socially dangerous acts before reaching the age of bringing them to criminal responsibility. Referring to the opinions of the OPPPN employees and the fact that among them only 10% have a legal education, he considers the measure provided for in the order to be ineffective and does not contribute to the organization of educational and preventive work among the served contingent.

It seems that in modern conditions it would be premature to release the OPGGPN employees from these duties. Since we are talking about the examination of statements and reports of crimes committed by persons under the age of criminal responsibility, and the collection of initial documents for making an appropriate decision, it is difficult to find a more suitable unit to perform these functions than the PSPPN. Other police departments work with no less workload and are no better provided with personnel with a legal education. The order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is fully consistent with the current criminal procedure legislation. The law provides not only the possibility, but even the obligation to carry out such functions by the bodies of inquiry (Article 119 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation), but in practice this is unreasonably ignored. In addition, in the process of collecting such materials, DPPPN employees not only do not lose contact with the "serviced contingent of persons", but, on the contrary, have the opportunity to obtain extensive information about their lifestyle and immediate environment, which allows them to more effectively solve their tasks.

The role of local police inspectors in the prevention of juvenile delinquency is insufficient. The service areas of the district police officers and the OPPPN employees, as shown by a study in some areas of the Rostov region, sometimes do not coincide, and they weakly interact with each other.

Preliminary investigation bodies do not fully clarify the circumstances contributing to the commission of crimes, the living conditions and upbringing of adolescents, the presence of adult instigators and connivors in far from all criminal cases against minors, and especially young people. In most cases, the content of the investigators' submissions on specific criminal cases and the recommendations set out in them are formal and stereotyped.

Weakly participate in the prevention of crimes of minors and young people, patrol and checkpoint services, traffic police.

It is required to take additional measures to improve the activities of the internal affairs bodies in this area. It is necessary to make adjustments to the relevant regulations governing the work of various police departments to prevent youth crime in order to increase its effectiveness.

We are talking not only about units for juvenile affairs of the internal affairs bodies, but also centers of temporary isolation for minors, units of the criminal police, and other units that carry out measures to prevent juvenile delinquency.

It is advisable to carry out special criminological prevention differentiated in relation to various criminogenic sources of crime, spheres of life of minors and young people, each of which has its own specifics. The most important task of special prevention is the purposeful identification, elimination, weakening, neutralization of criminogenic factors in the immediate microsocial environment of young people and adolescents, a positive change in the personality of young people. For its implementation, it is required to ensure in each case a preliminary study of the characteristics of the object of influence, the planned nature and sequence of the preventive measures carried out, and their sufficiency. In this regard, the following areas of special criminological activity are acquiring special relevance today, as the study has shown:

1. Prevention of criminogenic factors of family trouble.

2. Neutralization of criminogenic factors at school and in work collectives.

3. Prevention of negative influence of informal micro-groups of negative orientation on young people.

4. Improving the state of the microenvironment of young people in prisons.

Preventive activities to improve the situation in the family can be carried out in the following sequence:

1. Identification of dysfunctional families.

2. Diagnostics of family problems.

3. Implementation of preventive measures to normalize the microclimate in the family.

4. Adoption of administrative and criminal-legal measures of influence on parents who maliciously violate the duties of raising children. Identifying families where the proper upbringing of children is not provided or where there are no adequate living and development conditions for minors and young people is a laborious process of collecting and analyzing information of different content from numerous sources. Among them are the following:

Letters, complaints, statements of citizens, organizations and institutions about the offending behavior of members of a particular family;

Records of the detention of minors and young people by police officers for various offenses;

Administrative materials regarding adults with a family and children (delivered and placed in medical sobering-up centers, detained for petty hooliganism, petty theft, etc.);

Inspection materials in relation to persons who have committed socially dangerous acts provided for by the criminal legislation, before reaching the age of criminal responsibility;

Materials of criminal cases against minors; materials of criminal cases against adults with a family and children, minors or young brothers and sisters;

Materials of medical institutions about people suffering from chronic alcoholism, drug addiction, about minors and young people registered in vendispensaries;

Materials of divorce proceedings in courts; data from passport offices, registry offices, housing and communal services, social protection services about single mothers, widows and widowers raising minor children, about families experiencing severe financial difficulties;

Employment services data on families where both parents with children are unemployed;

Special questionnaires filled out by specific teenagers;

Diagnosis of family trouble is carried out by studying documents, examining a dysfunctional family with the preparation of a survey report, which reflects the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of a dysfunctional family (the number of family members, its financial situation, living conditions, the moral climate in the family, the relationship of parents with each other and with children, data on the behavior of family members, etc.) and outlined ways to normalize the situation in it, the forms of public and state control. Commission examinations are carried out by police officers together with employees of educational institutions, representatives of local administrations, commissions for juvenile affairs, and deputies.

Preventive measures to normalize the situation in dysfunctional families are carried out in two forms:

1. Educational and preventive impact.

2. Compulsory legal impact.

Educational and preventive measures are carried out at two levels:

1. For certain groups of families (general measures).

2. With regard to a specific family (individual measures).

Organization of pedagogical universal education of parents in educational institutions;

Speech by representatives of law enforcement agencies to parents with lectures and conversations on legal topics;

Creation of a cinema lecture hall for parents at cinemas, clubs, palaces of culture with the theme "Children and the Law", "When Parents Are Responsible", "Sex Education of Girls and Young Men", "Youth and Drug Addiction", "Responsibility of Minors for Administrative and Criminal Offenses" and others;

Off-site open sessions of courts, commissions on juvenile affairs with consideration of criminal cases on crimes of adolescents and young people, materials on deprivation of parental rights, with a discussion in the presence of parents from families of the risk of urgent problems of juvenile delinquency in the microdistrict, village;

Organization of parental patrols in neighborhoods, in public places;

Organization of training for chefs who provide methodological assistance to disadvantaged families and exercise control over them.

General educational and preventive measures are quite diverse and are not limited to the above list. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly study the practice, look for new forms of work, and disseminate positive experience.

Individual preventive measures are just as diverse. However, the latter should be selected taking into account the specific characteristics of a particular dysfunctional family, taking into account the diagnosis of the degree of family dysfunction. At the same time, for each individual dysfunctional family, the subject of prevention develops a plan of individual measures, a short list of which may be as follows:

Study of parents at the place of work and residence, the possibilities of the collective influence on them;

Family home visits;

Inviting parents (depending on the circumstances with both minors and adult children) for an individual conversation in the departments of the internal affairs body;

Applying with a petition to the relevant institutions for the provision of material and financial assistance to specific families, assistance in finding a job, providing housing, etc.

When educational and preventive work, despite the exhaustive measures taken, does not give a positive result or when the degradation of the family has reached a degree that directly threatens the physical and mental health of children and their immediate protection is required, as well as in cases stipulated by law, compulsory legal measures of influence are applied to parents and persons replacing them. Subjects of prevention have a fairly wide arsenal of such measures. The legislation provides for the legal responsibility of negligent parents (up to criminal) for their criminal or simply irresponsible attitude towards raising children.

The study of the practice of neutralizing criminogenic factors at school and in work collectives shows that the indicated area of ​​activity of the subjects of prevention has been significantly updated. The characteristics of the microenvironment in educational and labor collectives have significantly deteriorated in recent years. Students and working youth are losing interest in school, in the mass professions of working people. In school and labor collectives, interpersonal relations are aggravated. Mutual misunderstandings are growing between teachers and students, teachers and students, leaders and young workers. Often conflict situations, adolescents and young people try to resolve by forceful methods, and the need for communication is compensated by establishing connections in pedagogically neglected uncontrolled groups.

A selective study of the problem of violence was carried out in six schools in the city of Rostov-on-Don (anonymous survey of 513 students in grades 4-11) located in districts and microdistricts of varying degrees of criminal infection. The age of the respondents is from 10 to 17 years, 47% are males, 52% are females.

27% of respondents indicated that they have been subjected to violence, of which 39% - once, 23% - twice and 32% - more than twice.

The forms of violence were distributed as follows: extortion of money - 47%, beating - 34%, bullying - 18%, extortion of things - 13%, violence against a person (verbal) - 9%, attempted rape - 6%, rape - 1% (the last two figures, due to known circumstances, even with an anonymous form of the survey, far from reflecting the real state of the problem).

The rapists, as a rule, are high school students (34%), more often from among "strangers" (45%), that is, students of other schools or other educational institutions, primarily vocational schools, as well as teenagers who do not work or study anywhere ...

The rapists act mainly in a group (60% of cases); alone - only 24%.

Violence is usually accompanied by a threat with a knife (19%), brass knuckles (5%), firearms (4%), as well as a gas pistol or spray can, nunchaku, metal sticks, chains, sticks, etc.

More than a third of the respondents (37%) did not tell anyone about what happened to them, because they "do not believe that they will be helped" (22%) or thought that "it will be even worse" (11%).

Of those who decided to tell about their misfortune, 42% trusted their parents; friends, comrades - 53%, teachers - 4%, police representatives (mainly OPPPN) - 4%.

It is important to emphasize that 73% of the surveyed schoolchildren are aware of the facts of violence in their environment.

At the same time, 19% of respondents observed this phenomenon or witnessed it, 41% of students learned about it from their friends and comrades, 30% from their parents and only 10% from teachers. Only 11% of respondents indicated that they know about the problem through the media.

More than half of the respondents (58%) stressed that they do not feel protected from violence, and only 36% answered positively (however, almost a third of them simply rely on their fists, a secluded lifestyle, etc.). 32% of the students answered - "all together", the police - 35%, the students themselves - 24%, parents and teachers (9% each).

It is symptomatic that at the same time 54% of the respondents consider the establishment of permanent police posts in schools to be the most effective way to combat violence. A serious argument in favor of introducing the position of a school police inspector.

Analysis of the problem by gender showed that among the victims of violence, boys (boys) make up more than two-thirds, although girls (girls) consider themselves less protected.

In general, the study revealed not only the extreme severity of the problem, but also increased anxiety and bitterness in children and adolescents.

Pessimists among the respondents, in relation to a possible positive change in the situation, are a clear majority, and "optimists", in most cases, are those who believe in themselves (in their strength, available means of self-defense), in their older brothers or "tough" friends.

Most of the respondents, especially among high school students, not only clearly understand the state of the problem, its main causes, but also suggest ways to combat this phenomenon and prevent it.

In a generalized form, these proposals boil down to the following: teach children and adolescents ways of self-defense, the ability to behave correctly (competently) in appropriate circumstances, pay more attention to raising culture and morality (introduce lessons "what is good and what is bad"), pay special attention to children from low-income families, etc.

The study not only confirmed the seriousness of the problem of violence among children and adolescents (including outside the school), but also the urgent need for an urgent and effective response from the state and society.

Employees of the internal affairs bodies - OPPPN, district inspectors and others need to constantly study the processes taking place in the youth environment in schools and work collectives located in the service area, establish an appropriate record of collectives in which an unfavorable situation develops, apply the entire arsenal of available preventive measures (how general and individual) to normalize it. Criminal investigation officers are required to build up their operational positions in such teams. The heads of the internal affairs bodies in cities, districts and regions should systematically consider at collegiums, operational meetings the issue of the state of the operational situation and preventive work in schools, OPTU, universities, enterprises and organizations located in the served territories. It is required to ensure the exchange of information between various departments on these issues, to submit submissions to the relevant higher educational institutions, committees and ministries.

Informal groups with a negative orientation are widespread among adolescents and young people today. They are dominated by aimless pastime, accompanied by drunkenness, drug use, gambling, committing hooliganism, violence against individual members of the group, committing offenses and crimes. The latter is, first of all, the result of an unconscious reaction of young people to a sharp increase in social contradictions. Most of these groups arise at the place of residence of young people for joint leisure activities, on the basis of a class, dormitory, courtyard, neighborhood, etc. which a previously convicted leader appears, is reoriented into a criminal offender, with its own subculture, system of relationships. They involve unsophisticated adolescents, girls from disadvantaged families, against whom violence, debauchery is committed and who are attracted to commit crimes. Existing for a long time (according to our data, from 6 months to two years) and remaining undetected, such groups begin to unite and gravitate towards organized criminal structures.

A questionnaire survey of minors registered with the OPPPN in the Rostov region (Rostov-on-Don, Volgodonsk, Tsimlyansk) showed that the majority (59.3%) committed a crime (offense) in the group. The composition of the group of more than 4 people was indicated by 39% of the respondents. Almost half (46.7%) of such groups have a clear leader. The possibility of leaving the group was indicated by 54.8% of the respondents.

The majority of juvenile delinquent groups (60%) are male minors. Gender-mixed groups account for 21.2%.

Most of the respondents were prosecuted under Art. 158 and 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. There is a tendency towards the rejuvenation of members of criminal groups. At the age of 12-14 years, 28.9% of minors consisted of them. At the time of the commission of crimes (offenses) 62.2% were in secondary school, 21.5% were studying at the ISU (lyceum), 3.7% were working, 11.9% were not working or studying anywhere. Thus, comparing similar data from previous years, we can conclude about the growth trend in crime among secondary school students.

The negative influence of informal groups on adolescents and young people cannot be suppressed by their isolation from the group, since the latter provides them with the necessary social and emotional comfort. Various ways of solving this problem are suggested in the literature. The most rational and acceptable to us is the point of view of O.B. Lysya-gin, 1 who sees three options for a solution:

1) the separation of the young man from the criminal environment with his simultaneous inclusion in the positive environment;

2) reorientation of the criminal environment (group) to a socially useful, positive basis;

3) the disbandment of adolescent (youth) groups, whose activities reflect their antisocial orientation.

Let's dwell on the techniques and methods of influencing the group as a whole.

1. The most common method is dissociation. It consists in the fact that the members of the groups are assigned to various educational institutions or get a job at various enterprises.

At the same time, conversations are held with parents about not allowing the children to communicate with each other. Sometimes the organizer of the group and its most active members are sent to SPTU and secondary schools, you can use a temporary referral for 15 days at PRI.

It should be borne in mind that with an unsuccessful attempt to disconnect, the bonds between adolescents are often strengthened, and their behavior may already be of a pronounced antisocial character.

2. Another way is reorientation. Its essence is that the group basically retains its composition, but its focus is changed with the help of preventive measures applied to the entire company as a whole.

The educational influence on each participant is carried out through the influence on the group.

Moreover, methods are known when the influence on the group is carried out not only through personal influence by the police officers, but also indirectly through the pedagogical collectives and the public. For other techniques, you can focus on the following:

1. Reorientation of the group with the help of the leader - by influencing the group through him.

To do this, it is necessary to identify the leaders (it is believed that the existence of leaders in a group is natural, and with the elimination of one leader, another takes his place).

2. You can reorient the group and the introduction of a new leader from among the public. The influence of the old naturally diminishes. It should be borne in mind that all options for reorientation are based mainly on the uncritical reflection of the group members of the influence that the leaders and the most persistent members have on them.

Currently, the problem of leadership is one of the most serious.

The fact is that the leader at school and the leader on the street are completely different people. Some minors with organizational skills become leaders of spontaneous street companies. In schools, falling into the category of "difficult", they are removed from leadership. In other cases, they themselves do not want to take command positions. Especially if the assets are mostly girls.

Thus, as long as such an abnormal situation exists, there will be undesirable formations among minors.

Involuntary resistance to this process increases the leader's need, as already mentioned, to participate in a group of peers of the same sex. Consequently, the outlet is in the expansion of boys' companies controlled by adults (circles, sections, services, camps).

The inclusion of all or several participants in another team with a different useful orientation (circle, camp) will be the next third method of group reorientation.

Unfortunately, the employees of our OGGPN do not always attach importance and skillfully use the leisure of minors in re-education (in moral development, the elimination of bad habits of behavior in general).

It should be remembered that juvenile delinquents are always fond of living things and do not tolerate monotony. They have such qualities as:

a) sociability;

b) thirst for research (hence easily excitable curiosity, questions);

c) striving for creation out of nothing, supplementing the missing with imagination;

d) the instinct of creativity (the desire to express oneself, fantasy);

e) the instinct of imitation.

Summarizing the above, it is possible to formulate the requirements that must be met by a team capable of reorienting a group of minors.

His activities should be useful, exciting and interesting, while observing the principles of independence, activity and creativity that satisfy the minor.

What measures of individual prevention can be applied to group members?

We have repeatedly drawn your attention to the fact that a preventive influence on a group does not mean a refusal to work individually with each of its members.

Moreover, the impact on the group is only effective when it affects individually each participant.

It must be remembered that all used means of individual prevention can be considered as measures to prevent group juvenile delinquency.

When working with minors in groups, it is necessary:

1. To study their individual characteristics, worldview, intellect, mental state, moral qualities. If the first individual characteristics make it possible to correctly plan preventive work, then the latter will make it possible to judge the readiness for correction. It is important to establish the adolescent's own opinion of unlawful behavior, whether it bears the character of remorse, is indifferent, or the adolescent flaunts his actions.

2. It is necessary to take into account the specific circumstances that contributed to the illegal behavior and create difficulties in re-education.

3. Establishment of psychological contact between the offender, parents and police officers.

4. The inevitability of punishment.

Impunity fosters group solidarity, which weighs on each participant and can undermine the effectiveness of educational efforts.

And on the contrary, the application of the necessary sanctions to the perpetrators creates the necessary prerequisites for individual prevention.

5. The correct selectivity of preventive measures is very important, since the same measures of influence can lead to opposite results. The most commonly used in prevention are individual conversations.

Conversations can be divided into two groups:

1. Search character. In it, it is important to determine the reasons for the adolescent's bad behavior, the nature of his relationship with the group members, the position held, in other words, the employee searches for various circumstances, knowledge of which helps to develop specific ways of individual influence.

2. Preventive nature, carried out by persuasion, suggestion, warning.

The conducted inspections of the work of the DPPU indicate that individual conversations are often one-sided in nature, are carried out mainly in connection with the commission of an offense, while a preventive conversation is based on the collected information and involves an educational impact.

Often, the position of the teenager in the group is not taken into account. Other members of the group, upon learning of the call for a conversation, become alarmed. Sometimes it can be helpful to have conversations with all participants at once. Here it is important to choose the right venue, time, identify the persons participating in the conversation, parents, members of the pedagogical team. Readiness for a conversation largely depends on the awareness of those who are called. It is necessary to encourage the participants to have a frank conversation. What each individually was afraid to tell, everyone says, such frankness can contribute to a reassessment of their behavior, the ability to correct themselves.

Helping parents is also important. It is very important that the PSPU worker strives to establish contact with the parents. Unfortunately, these contacts boil down to the presentation of various claims. Sometimes, indeed, parents would like to raise their children correctly, but they fail. In these cases, a consultation should be arranged.

With regard to negligent parents, appropriate measures must be taken to force them to change their attitude towards children.

The study of group cases showed that the PPPU employees do not know what should be in other operational search cases.

Required Documentation:

1. Inventory of documents in the case.

2. Decision on the need to initiate a case.

3. Plan of events.

4. The chosen method of separation, reorientation, forces and means involved in this.

5. Characteristics of the group (amorphous, situational, there is a core, the most active participants, predicted groups).

6. List of group members.

7. Distribution of roles between members of the group.

8. Favorite gathering places.

9. Photographs of the members of the group.

10. Scheme of connections of group members.

11. Scheme of meeting places for group members.

12. Information about the persons directly responsible for the upbringing of a teenager.

13. Others who can positively influence the group.

14. Characteristics for the group, received from the place of study, work.

15. Activities carried out with the group.

16. Work of the district inspector with the group.

This is a brief description of the activities carried out with a group of minors.

Now about mixed groups.

According to statistics, every group crime 2-4 involves persons who have reached the age of 18. The involvement of adults always strongly influences the nature of the wrongful acts committed by groups of adolescents. Studies have shown that if the life of adolescent groups is 1-2 months or more, and mixed groups are shorter, then this indicates the randomness of their occurrence and the absence of permanent connections between the participants. The difference between adolescent and mixed groups is small. Mixed groups are attended by adults 18-20 years of age. In groups with adults, is one of them always the organizer? It turns out - no. In most of these groups, minors are leaders.

Thus, adults aged 18-20 are no different from minors. Apparently, it is not so much age as the level of development, the degree of demoralization, and personal qualities determine the position of the participant in the group. It should be noted that while groups of adolescents with the participation of 18 - 20-year-old adults, as a rule, are organized on the basis of comradely companies, then groups of older people are more often formed directly for the commission of a crime.

The participation of older persons makes the group more organized, stimulating it to commit other illegal actions, and the leader himself counts on the subordination of the teenager, the appropriation of the kidnapped and, most importantly, to avoid responsibility.

So, 18-20-year-old adults in teenage groups can be both ordinary participants and organizers, and even more often - performers. Moreover, their age is not decisive in the groups, does not determine the role. Adults who are much older tend to be the organizers of crimes and instigators. Employees should always keep this in mind when working to separate groups of adults and minors.

In this case, special criminological measures should be closely related to general social measures - the creation of an appropriate leisure industry, the improvement of the activities of cultural and sports institutions, and other leisure institutions. It seems that it would be a mistake to rely only on passive (contemplative), and not active forms of leisure.

Foreign practice shows that in countries where the situation with youth crime is successful, the state pays significant attention to work at the place of residence of young people.

In parallel, individual preventive work should be carried out with difficult adolescents, criminally-minded young people who are part of informal negative groups, and their leaders. Emphasizing the importance of personality in the genesis of criminal behavior, N.F. Kuznetsova rightly notes that "no preventive work, no matter how it heals the environment, can be considered complete as long as there are criminogenic needs, interests and motives in the minds of the communities and individuals being prevented." ...

Purposeful educational work should contribute to the reorientation of criminogenic leisure groups of adolescents and youth. Further legalization of informal associations will make it possible to control the behavior of "informals", influence their motivation, and destroy antisocial attitudes. Establishing permanent contacts with the leaders of informal youth groups with a negative orientation will make it possible to carry out active preventive work to prevent actions that violate law and order on their part. Identification of such groups at the place of residence, timely registration, active operational work in relation to them will create opportunities to prevent them from committing hooliganism, theft, robbery, robbery and other crimes.

Work at the place of residence is one of the urgent tasks in the system of special prevention of youth crime. Being a poorly studied problem, it requires further study of the role of the microenvironment in the mechanism of the formation of the personality of young criminals. Prevention of the spontaneous influence of the negative microenvironment is one of the most important tasks of all subjects of crime prevention among minors and young people.

In the course of the study, the following can be summarized:

This book examines a wide range of scientific and practical problems arising both in various branches of psychological and pedagogical knowledge, and in various areas of preventive practice, social and correctional and rehabilitation work.

At the same time, some of the problems associated with the diagnosis and correction of child and adolescent maladjustment are only outlined and require their further, more in-depth scientific study and approbation in experimental work. At present, such work has begun to be actively carried out both in practice and in various scientific teams. So, in particular, for these purposes in 1991, the Committee for Family Affairs and Demographic Policy and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation established the VNIK "State System of Social Assistance to Family and Childhood", which managed to combine the efforts of many practically oriented scientists and practitioners from Moscow. St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Belgorod, Voronezh, Rostov, Chelyabinsk. Diagnostic and correctional and social programs developed by VNIK have been introduced and tested in schools with classes of correctional and compensatory education, in centers of social and pedagogical rehabilitation, at faculties of social work.

The work of the VNIK experimental sites shows "that the arming of practitioners, teachers, psychologists, social educators and workers with preventive psychological knowledge makes it possible to more effectively carry out preventive functions based on psychological and pedagogical support and assistance to children and families at risk, carrying out special correction and rehabilitation programs in the conditions of the school educational process, the social and pedagogical organization of the educational environment.

The introduction of these programs into widespread practice is associated with the creation and development of a special social industry, including the development and publishing of scientific and methodological literature, training and retraining of both practitioners and teachers of higher educational institutions, the creation of practical centers for social and socio-psychological assistance.

The functions of implementing the scientific and practical programs of VNIK "State system of social assistance to family and childhood" were taken over by the Consortium "Social Health of Russia", which established a specialized publishing house and a specialized periodical "Bulletin of psychosocial and correctional and rehabilitation work", and also opened a Center for psychosocial work, began the implementation of a training program, began to implement programs of social and correctional and rehabilitation work in various territories of Russia.

While maintaining contacts with different territories and regions, we are pleased to state the fact that there is a noticeable increase in interest in this problem and an understanding of the need for a professional approach to its solution among representatives of the management level, both at the state and municipal levels.

This is also facilitated by the opening of faculties and departments for the training of social workers in almost sixty Russian universities. I would like to hope that the combined efforts of scientists, practitioners, representatives of management structures and authorities will allow Russia to move from punitive preventive practice to a set of measures of social, psychological and pedagogical support and assistance to families, children, adolescents as the main condition for the prevention and correction of child and adolescent deviations. ...

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Educational literature on legal psychology

Belicheva S.A.
FUNDAMENTALS OF PREVENTIVE PSYCHOLOGY.

Chapter 7. ROLE OF INFORMAL ADOLESCENT CRIMINOGENIC GROUPS IN DESOCIALIZATION OF MINORS AND WAYS OF NEUTRALIZING THEIR INFLUENCE

7.1. Classification of informal adolescent groups

Above, we examined what are the unfavorable conditions of family and school upbringing, leading to deformation of the personality of a minor. The family and school most often have a so-called indirect desocializing influence, as a result of which maladjusted adolescents cease to learn the moral values ​​cultivated by the main institutions of socialization, and are guided, first of all, by the norms and values ​​of informal criminal groups. Thus, these groups ultimately play a major role in shaping the personality of juvenile offenders, acting as their reference groups and preferred communication environment. Hence, it is no coincidence that most of the crimes are committed by minors in groups. In particular, as noted by K. Ye. Igoshev, “about 75% of the total number of minors under study committed crimes as part of groups. At the same time, mercenary crimes, as well as crimes in the form of socially dangerous acts, are committed within the most stable and long-standing groups. In general, it would not be an exaggeration to say: juvenile delinquency is a group crime. "

And then the same author rightly notes that the very facts of the formation of groups of adolescents and young men are a natural process. Indeed, it is known that a teenager is characterized by an increased need for communication with peers; adolescents tend to listen to the opinion of their peers more than to the opinion of adults, parents and teachers. This increased desire for communication is explained by the age-related patterns of mental development in adolescence, the main psychological neoplasm of which is self-awareness, which is formed in communication, in interaction with others like themselves.

Consequently, the danger is fraught not in general with adolescent communication and informal adolescent groups, but only in vehicles in which the criminalization of minors takes place. To find out what these groups are, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on the characteristics of informal adolescent groups.

According to one of the leading researchers of adolescent informal communication, I. S, Polonsky, about 85% of adolescents and young men go through spontaneous group communication. At the same time, the author believes that the organized school collective and spontaneous communication of adolescents differ in a number of parameters. A spontaneous group is prone to self-isolation, extreme isolation from adults, primarily from parents and school. In such groups, a narrow-group morality arises, which in a distorted form represents the "adult" norms and values ​​so desired by adolescents.

By the nature of the social orientation, I.S.Polonsky divides spontaneous groups into three types:

prosocial or socially positive;

asocial, standing apart from the main social problems, closed in the system of narrow group values;

antisocial - socially negative groups, 3/5, that is, most of the studied adolescent associations belong, according to the author, to prosocial, that is, socially positive and close to this type of associations.

Among the pro-social groups, it is necessary to highlight the amateur informal groups of young people who carry a socially significant constructive and transformative beginning, have their own goals, objectives, and program of action. It can be environmental, cultural, socio-political, conservation-historical and other programs that voluntarily unite young like-minded people. As some researchers note, the "breeding ground" for criminal teenage groups is by no means an amateur movement of informal youth, but intermediate leisure groups ("fans", "rockers", "lyuers", "metalheads", sports fans, "breakers", " t-shirts ", etc.), which are formed on the basis of the commonality of their aesthetic tastes, adherence to certain musical trends, musical, sports godfathers, newfangled dances, extravagant fashion, etc. The reason giving rise to such closed group associations is often excessive regulation, bureaucratization of schools, cultural institutions, art, the absence of teenage and youth leisure centers and associations of interests, a "prohibitive" attitude towards youth fashion, and reassurance. Hence, the best educational and prophylactic means, preventing the growth of such "gustatory", leisure associations into asocial and antisocial groups, is the "legalization" of youth hobbies, providing an opportunity for free choice of leisure activities, opportunities for realizing their tastes and interests in adolescent and youth clubs, centers where the guys can feel quite autonomous and independent.

A special group is informal youth associations, where the integrating, uniting core is the way of life, one's own morality, spiritual values, a kind of subculture, paraphernalia, slang. Such associations and communities are built on the denial of generally accepted morality, on opposing it to a group, often very extravagant subculture. These are, first of all, hippies, punks and highlifes. If hippies are characterized by complete freedom, including freedom of sexual relations, built on equality and tolerance, rejection of any kind of overorganization and regulation, then punks have relations in the community on a more rigid principle: internal hierarchy is allowed and takes place, the ritual of "omission", cynical attitude towards girls "a disdain for the law and the criminal code, a decrease in the value of one's own life.

High-lifeists promoting a "beautiful life", exquisite manners, a luxurious lifestyle, well-ordered life, connections, career aspirations, also oppose their group subculture to the people around them, whom they classify as second class, trying in every possible way to limit their contacts with "grayness", " cattle ".

It would be wrong to see potential criminals behind every, even the most extravagant youth group, to whom special preventive measures should be applied.

However, it should be noted that group isolation, corporatism, isolation of informal youth groups "not included in the system of broader social relations, creates the preconditions for unfavorable dynamics of group social orientation," transformation ", the development of pro-social, leisure associations into asocial, antisocial groups. , the creation of ample opportunities for the implementation of various taste preferences in the field of leisure, the independent participation of members of youth groups in the organization of their leisure, sports, artistic, musical and other creativity can be attributed to general prevention measures that prevent the possible criminalization of informal groups.

It is especially worth dwelling on the characteristics of asocial groups in which criminalization directly occurs.

First of all, these groups are mainly attended by "difficult" teenagers who are isolated in their classrooms and, in addition, brought up in dysfunctional families. The leaders in these groups are adolescents with a narrowly egoistic orientation. Thus, in asocial groups, due to their isolation from adults and class groups, their own narrow-group values ​​and subordination to a leader with an egoistic orientation, serious prerequisites arise for the criminalization of minors.

This kind of asocial groups, in which juvenile crimes are not yet committed, but seem to mature, are also called criminogenic groups in the literature. So, AI Dolgova believes that "crime groups are an environment that forms and stimulates the motivation of antisocial behavior." Members of criminogenic groups, in contrast to criminal ones, do not have a clear orientation towards committing crimes, the norms of criminogenic groups, although they contradict the official ones, still do not strictly define the behavior of their members as criminals. They, as a rule, create situations of conflict with socially positive moral requirements, less often with legal ones. Therefore, members of criminogenic groups commit most crimes in problematic, conflict situations or favorable conditions for this,

In turn, criminal groups are characterized by a clear focus on criminal behavior, they are characterized by illegal norms and prepared, organized crime. This kind of criminal groups of minors are quite rare.

Informal adolescent groups are not some kind of static, unchanging socio-psychological formations.

They are characterized by their own group dynamics "a certain development is inherent, as a result of which groups with an asocial orientation can develop into criminogenic or even criminal groups. I.P. , to distinguish three levels of development of criminogenic groups.

1. Pre-criminal or anti-social groups adolescents with a focus on antisocial activities. These are spontaneous, spontaneous informal groups at the place of residence. They are characterized by aimless pastime, situational socially disapproved behavior: gambling, drunkenness, minor offenses, etc. The members of the group in their entirety do not commit offenses, since for this they still lack organization and cohesion, although individual offenses may already be committed. The main activity of such groups is communication, which is based on meaningless pastime.

2. Volatile or crime groups characterized by the criminal orientation of group value orientations. Drunkenness, debauchery, money-grubbing, striving for an easy life are becoming the norm in these groups. Group members move from minor, non-punishable offenses to more socially dangerous actions. However, there is no prearranged and organized criminal activity in these groups yet, but there is already a tendency to commit crimes by some of its members. According to AR Ratinov's terminology, these groups are closest to "companies of offenders.

3. Resilient criminal or criminal groups... These are stable associations of adolescents, formed for the joint commission of any crimes. Most often these are thefts, robberies, robberies, hooliganism, violent crimes, etc. They already have a clear organizational structure. The "leading center" stands out - the leader, "preferred", performers. In groups there is a system of unwritten laws "norms and values, which are carefully hidden from others. Non-observance or violation of these" laws "leads to the disintegration of the group, therefore violators of the" convention "are prosecuted and punished. In groups there is a strong dependence of members on each other, the basis of which Therefore, the quantitative composition of such groups is more or less constant. The crime plan is developed and approved in advance, roles are assigned, the timing of the "criminal" operations is scheduled. Often the members of the group are armed with melee weapons. All this makes such groups the most dangerous, A. R. Ratinov classifies such associations as “gangs,” and armed ones as “gangs,” although there are no big differences in the plans for their organization and activities. of crimes registers such formations.

Thus, as evidenced by various studies, spontaneously emerging informal adolescent groups, firstly, differ significantly in the degree of their criminalization, in the degree of involvement in criminal activity, which cannot be ignored in preventive and preventive activities. And, secondly, they are very dynamic in their internal structure, have their own inherent patterns of development and criminalization, knowledge and understanding of which are necessary for the successful prevention of group juvenile delinquency.

First of all, in criminal groups of minors, attention is drawn to the fact that most often they were created not for criminal activity, but by chance, for a joint pastime. Thus, according to Ukrainian researchers, 52% of mercenary and 63% of aggressive crimes were committed by groups that were not organized for criminal activity. But even specially organized groups committed most of the crimes without prior preparation.

Such disorganization, situationality in the commission of crimes, which characterizes a significant part of criminogenic teenage groups, forces us to carefully examine those socio-psychological mechanisms that, as it were, spontaneously lead them to criminal activity.

To do this, first of all, it is necessary to consider in more detail the main characteristics of these groups, their composition, who is part of them, what are their norms and other features of the group subculture, how they are managed, and leadership processes take place.

7.2. Characteristics of teenage crime groups

The study of criminogenic teenage groups over the past 10-15 years has been undertaken by criminologists and psychologists in various regions of the country. The results of these studies were covered in the works of IL, Bashkatov, AI Dolgova, KE Igoshev, AE Taras and others. A number of collections and collective monographs are devoted to this problem.

Under the author's guidance, in order to study group norms and values, attributes of the group subculture, leadership processes and other socio-psychological phenomena that determine group cohesion and criminalization of asocial adolescent groups, 15 such groups were also studied in the process of educational and preventive work.

It should be noted that the results of studies carried out over the years in various regions of the country indicate fairly stable and homogeneous processes that characterize group dynamics in criminogenic teenage groups.

First, attention is drawn to the fact that these groups are most often represented by male adolescents, less often have a mixed composition and even less often consist of girls.

Thus, according to IP Bashkatov, among the studied teenage groups who committed crimes, 74% were male, 6% were female, and 20% were mixed. According to Ukrainian researchers, 96% of juvenile delinquents are male.

A very alarming trend has emerged in relation to female crime. On the one hand, there is an increase in crime among underage girls, and on the other, there are facts of cynical attitudes towards girls in mixed teenage groups (the presence of so-called "common girls", group sex, attracting girls from street companies to participate in the rape of their friends and acquaintances) ... The consequences of female cynicism and open cynical attitude towards young women are especially detrimental to the social and spiritual health of both modern and subsequent generations.

What are the members of criminal groups by occupation? Of the juvenile criminals surveyed in Ukraine before conviction, 31% worked, 28% studied in general education schools, 29% - in vocational schools, 12% did not study and did not work. At the same time, truancy, violations of discipline, and dishonesty were typical for both working and students of juvenile offenders.

Thus, 30% of working adolescents convicted of crimes have already changed their place of work, despite a short length of service. 40% of them did not like the job, 41% were not satisfied with the salary they received, 60% did not take part in the social life of the collective. If, at the same time, we take into account that a significant part of working adolescents are, first of all, in the past, pedagogically neglected students who at one time got out of the influence of the school, it will become obvious that this category of minors for a considerable time was actually outside the zone of action of such important institutions of socialization, which are educational and labor collectives.

Teenage delinquent students are characterized by low academic performance, unwillingness to learn; 39% of those surveyed studied poorly, 49% - satisfactory, and only 12% - good. The consequence of poor studies, as noted above, is prestigious dissatisfaction, a decrease in the referential importance of the classroom team, and a way out of its influence.

Thus; even for those adolescents who were employed at the place of study or work, a weakening of connection with their teams was characteristic, as a result of which their socializing influence was significantly reduced, and the assimilation of social experience was mainly carried out in criminogenic groups or under their direct influence. Moreover, the influence of such groups was of decisive importance for adolescents without specific occupations, which amounted to 12%, that is, almost every eighth person from the convicts.

The families of minors, which, as we noted above, are characterized by functional inconsistency, inability to carry out educational functions, could not significantly resist the criminogenic influence of groups either. And, in addition, a number of families (immoral and asocial) have a direct desocializing influence in the form of direct patterns of immoral behavior or acquisitive and antisocial attitudes and beliefs.

The actual exclusion of minors from the system of positively oriented relations in their teams at the place of work and study leads to the fact that in asocial spontaneous teenage groups their own narrowly corporate morality begins to form, signs of their group subculture appear, emphasizing belonging to this particular group, their own hierarchy of intragroup relations is being formed , their leaders are nominated, defining the internal laws of these groups.

Such groups isolated from the outside world with a narrowly corporate morality are easily susceptible to the negative influence of more experienced, experienced criminals who infect minors with the false romance of the underworld, a sense of permissiveness and an easy attitude to moral values, law, and life.

KE Igoshev notes that about 1/3 of juvenile crimes are committed under the direct influence of adults, often with previous convictions. These persons involve adolescents and young men in criminal activities in a variety of, sometimes very clever ways. According to selective data, about 32% of cases of involvement of minors in criminal activity were carried out with the help of "profitable" mercenary offers, "comradely" requests and obligations, flattering persuasions, advice, admonitions. About 30% - through the gradual introduction of adolescents and young men to drinking together, and sometimes to lecherous actions. Threats and intimidation, deception and promises, as well as beatings and sometimes torture can be used. According to the same author, almost every seventh in the group of juvenile offenders was an adult.

A study conducted in Ukraine has shown that 42.1% of juvenile crime groups are organized with the participation of adults, that is, these groups covered about half of all juveniles involved in criminal activity. Most often, juveniles are involved in crimes between the ages of 18 and 25, many of whom have had previous convictions. So, according to the selective results of the same studies, adults who involve minors in criminal activity at the age of 18 - 25 years old accounted for 61.4%, 26 - 30 years old - 19.4%, over 30 years old - 19.2%.

Of the adult instigators and organizers, 44.1% were previously convicted (once - 57.1%, twice - 28.5%, three times or more - 14.4%). In addition, among the juvenile members of criminal groups, 2.1% were previously in prison, 2.3% were in special educational institutions.

Thus, one of the ways to criminalize adolescent groups is the influence of adult and experienced criminals who are the organizers of the criminal activities of groups with an asocial orientation. The prerequisites for this are the narrowly corporate isolation, the isolation of asocial groups from the influence of adults, the parents of teachers, the loss of connection with the collectives at the place of work and study.

However, a minority of asocial adolescent groups pass this path of criminalization, while most of them are criminalized, "ripening" to criminal activity without the direct influence of adult criminals, due to internal socio-psychological mechanisms and patterns that determine their criminological development.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of these internal socio-psychological mechanisms of criminalization of spontaneously formed adolescent groups, we conducted a special study of several asocial groups of juvenile offenders registered with the IDN for various minor offenses, alcohol consumption, running away from home, etc.

A kind of certification of these groups was carried out, specifying their composition, meeting place, preferred occupations, group norms and values. Particular attention was paid to the study of leadership processes, how the internal management of such groups is carried out and their kind of "cementing", knitting together, that is, ultimately, intragroup cohesion and stability are ensured.

First of all, in the field of view of the researchers came not so much criminal and criminogenic "as antisocial teenage groups, representing the primary stage on the path of criminalization and desocialization of minors. The surveyed groups consisted of 7-10 adolescents aged 12-14 years, some of whom already By occupation, these were, as a rule, "mixed groups of students from schools, vocational schools, working adolescents. Groups, companies were united rather on the basis of a common place of residence. Other, also important, common features that united the children into these groups were academic failure, poor academic performance, conflict relationships in the classroom, with teachers.

The gathering places of such companies, as a rule, are permanent, away from crowded places (basements, attics, cemeteries, new buildings, remote squares, etc.).

The most preferable activities are playing cards, singing "thieves" songs to the guitar, walking aimlessly in the streets, drinking, obscene talk about women, anecdotes. They discuss mainly conflicts with teachers, masters, plans of revenge against "enemies" from other yards and streets, their own sexual experience if it took place under cynical circumstances.

They avoid talking in a group about relationships with parents and about parents, about family complications, and the life plans of individual adolescents are not discussed. Almost gratuitous fights often break out both between members of the same group and between different groups. Fighting, in fact, is the main way to resolve conflicts. Fights with other companies arise mainly from the desire to prove belonging to a certain group community, to consolidate this influence in a certain territory.

In groups, nicknames and nicknames are cultivated, which most often come from the surname or emphasize the psychophysiological characteristics of adolescents; nicknames to a certain extent also express the hierarchy in group relations. For example, the nicknames "Count", "King", "Goga", as a rule, indicate the privileged position of adolescents in the group. There may be quite offensive nicknames that reinforce the general dismissive attitude towards the teenager,

The very fact of the widespread prevalence of nicknames in such companies testifies to a rather superficial, shallow communication of adolescents, a tendency to stereotyping, inattention to the individual characteristics and the inner world of their comrades. them have certain social roles in intragroup communication. Nicknames also serve to consolidate group isolation, acting as a way of socio-psychological fencing, isolation from others. Isolation from the outside world and intragroup integration are facilitated by group moral norms and moral values, which apply only to members of the group, regardless of the rest of the environment. Fidelity in friendship is understood as mutual responsibility, courage - as readiness for hooligan antics, senseless risk, honesty - as the ability not to let down your comrades. These are the main qualities that make up the intra-group code of honor, the violation of which is punished quite severely.

Group integration, the formation of a sense of "we", a sense of belonging to a given community of people, are carried out, first of all, by opposing themselves to those around them, both adults and other teenage groups and companies from neighboring streets, courtyards, and districts. Relations between groups, as a rule, are hostile, there are frequent and essentially unreasonable conflicts "resolved by violent fights.

All leaders and leaders play a special role in uniting the group, in maintaining its stability and strength. In all informal teenage groups, leadership processes are quite clearly traced. The authority of a leader rests not so much on fear of physical strength as on respect for intellect, experience, "experience", and strong-willed qualities. However, the moral authority of the leader is also supported by physical strength, and the leader himself, as a rule, does not participate in reprisals, while using the services of his entourage, playing the role of "vassals".

As an illustration of how leadership processes develop in criminogenic teenage groups, we can cite a very curious example that emerged as a result of a retrospective study of a criminal group of minors, which, in a fairly short time, in three to four months, from a teenage the company independently, without the participation and influence of adults, has grown into a dangerous criminal group that has committed a number of serious crimes. The group consisted of ten fourteen to sixteen-year-old adolescents, students of the same school, acquaintances from joint study and place of residence. It existed for about six months, choosing for itself the basement of one of the residential buildings as a permanent gathering place.

The study took place during the investigation period, and therefore, as the criterion by which the sociometric survey was conducted, the question was chosen: "With whom did you want to get together in a corrective labor colony?" In the course of this poll, an adolescent leader who received the absolute majority of elections was revealed, and a sociometric "star" with a negative sign - a teenager who was not liked by the weight and would not want any further communication with him. Both of these "stars" turned out to be the closest inseparable friends, as if they formed the psychological core of the group. They were the most active participants and initiators of all serious crimes, showing an enviable ingenuity in hiding the traces of crimes.

The leader turned out to be a 16-year-old teenager named "The Old Man", who was not distinguished by special physical strength, but with a fairly well-developed intellect, with restrained manners and an amazing ability for accurate, objective self-assessment and critical assessment of his comrades. Friends noted restraint in him, he never raised his voice, did not enter into fights, knew how to listen carefully, it was possible to talk to him "mentally", which, at the same time, did not prevent him from showing extreme cruelty and aggressiveness in crimes. One should not think that in relation to his friends he was guided by a feeling of affection, rather, it was a calculation, a stake on winning leadership rights by making up for the communication deficit that these guys experienced at school and at home.

However, leadership rights were asserted not only on a good basis. Not possessing sufficient physical strength, the leader himself never went into direct confrontation with the members of the group, but used for this his physically developed, but not authoritative among the guys, a friend who paid for patronage with slavish devotion and willingness to serve without hesitation.

Although the guys were attached to their group and spent almost all their free time in it, this does not mean that they felt a sense of psychological security there, and in the group they were bound by real companionship. On the contrary, in a more or less veiled form, relations here were built on the basis of the cruel subordination of the weak to the strong, who, in turn, sought to suppress the dignity of the weaker, force them to obey and serve themselves. This kind of relationship between the guys is clearly shown in the story "Composition" by V. Yakimenko. A cruel, aggressive teenager named "Demyan" with the help of older friends one by one subdues his classmates, brutally beats them, makes them humiliate to serve themselves. And this continues as long as the guys are conciliatory indifferently looking at what is happening and do not join their efforts to repel Demyan.

The promotion of an aggressive egoistic leader in such isolated from the outside world and focused on asocial manifestations and asocial activity of adolescent groups is no coincidence, just as it is no coincidence that relations here are built on a cruel hierarchy, subordination of the weak to the strong.

Domestic psychologists, in particular, A. V. Petrovsky and his students, proved that "the central link of the group structure is formed by the activity itself, its substantive socio-economic and socio-political characteristics." That is, the nature of the activity in which the collective, the group is included, determines the nature of the interpersonal relations developing in the group, the value-normative regulators of these relations, ultimately, determine the personal qualities of the informal leader who is nominated for the leadership of this group. It is known that spontaneously emerging teenage groups at first are not directly involved in criminal activity. They get together for entertainment purposes, with the sole purpose of spending time together. Here is how FS Makhov describes the preferred activities in the sphere of leisure in asocial groups: 1) drinking; 2) songs with a guitar; 3) going to the cinema and walking aimlessly on the streets; 4) listening to tape recordings and records; 5) hiking.

However, for adolescents isolated in their educational collectives, these spontaneously organized leisure groups turn out to be the main and often the only environment where the most important needs of adolescence in communication and self-affirmation are realized, without the implementation of which it is difficult to form the main psychological neoplasm of a teenager - self-consciousness.

In the above chapters, we noted that each age stage of socialization is characterized by its own leading institutions, mechanisms and methods. For a teenager, as we remember, the leading mechanism of socialization is the reference group, the method of socialization is the reference-significant activity, that is, the activity on the basis of which the teenager self-asserts itself in the conditions of the reference group of peers. In turn, the preferable communication environment, where he has the opportunity to assert himself, to win a sufficiently high authority and prestige among his peers, becomes a reference group, as well as a referential-significant activity.

Having lost in fact an internal connection with a positively oriented team, which is formed on the basis of socially significant activities, a teenager seeks to realize his need for self-affirmation in conditions of empty pastime in asocial forms of behavior, drinking, impudent, hooligan antics, in false courage and disregard for the prohibitions of adults, moral norms, rights. Such asocial activity becomes, in fact, a referential-significant activity of a teenager, which plays a decisive role both in the formation of his personality and determines interpersonal relations and intragroup normative regulators in adolescent groups. Hence, it is obvious that the criminalization of asocial adolescent groups can be carried out independently, without influence from the adult offender, due to unfavorable, distorted conditions of functioning, internal socio-psychological mechanisms and patterns inherent in the process of adolescent socialization.

The action of internal socio-psychological mechanisms - criminalization is significantly aggravated by alcoholization of minors, which leads to the removal of social control, the "shutdown" of perceived behavioral regulators. In addition, with the introduction of minors to drinking, an additional motive for criminal actions arises, consisting in the search for funds to purchase alcohol. Thus, the introduction to alcohol significantly increases the criminal danger of adolescent groups, which, in particular, is evidenced by statistics. The research results show that before the moment of joining criminal groups, 94.1% of adults and 78.3% of minors regularly or periodically consumed alcoholic beverages. It was also established that 82% of crimes were committed by them while intoxicated, among those convicted of aggressive crimes, the percentage of those who committed them under the influence of alcohol is above average and reaches 90%.

Obviously, among other educational and preventive measures to combat alcoholization of minors and their parents, an important place should be given in the prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Shifting the efforts of state structures, public organizations, law enforcement agencies from prohibitive measures to social and health-improving measures is the most important condition for combating alcoholization of the population and eradicating drunken crime, including among young people and adolescents.

So, we examined the main ways and factors that determine the criminalization of antisocial teenage groups, in which most of the juvenile crimes are committed. Neutralization of the desocializing influence of criminogenic groups, their timely identification and suppression of group criminal activity is one of the most important tasks in solving the problem of preventing juvenile delinquency.

7.3. Socio-pedagogical prevention of the process of criminalization of informal adolescent groups

Just as taking into account the degree of social neglect of adolescents and the nature of family trouble is the main condition for a differentiated approach in the choice of educational and preventive means in working with juvenile offenders and their families, so preventive activities to prevent group crime should be based on the degree and nature of criminalization of adolescents. groups.

As noted above, informal, spontaneously rallied adolescent groups are very heterogeneous both in the degree and in the methods of involvement in criminal activity. These can be the so-called prosocial groups with a positive social orientation, consisting of quite prosperous adolescents, united by common leisure interests, "friendship, companionship, common place of residence, etc.

Such pro-social groups, as the researchers note, make up the majority of spontaneously formed teenage companies and associations. In them, adolescents are united by a natural desire to communicate with peers, a desire for collective forms of recreation, entertainment, which is by no means reprehensible and should not cause much concern for the prevention authorities. It is clear that for such informal communication of adolescents on the basis of leisure interests, certain conditions are also necessary in the form of clubs, parks, youth cafes, cinemas. Finally, adolescents should have opportunities to gather at home, with the involvement of parents and adults in the discussion of problems of interest to young people. The unity of adults and children, the ability to fully communicate with comrades in a family or home environment is extremely necessary for the full and normal development of a teenager's personality, for the development of his normal relations with peers.

However, a completely different approach is required by antisocial, criminogenic and criminal groups, which should be primarily in the field of vision of special prevention agencies. In the event that the criminalization of the group has reached such a degree that minors have already become involved in criminal activity, it is necessary to timely identify adult criminals or the most experienced cynical minors who are the organizers of crimes. That is, teenage groups that have fallen under the negative influence of criminal elements should be taken under special control by the juvenile affairs inspectorate so that the corrupting influence of these persons is promptly suppressed.

It should be noted that, in general, law enforcement agencies are far from fully fulfilling their functions to protect minors from the criminal environment and criminal elements. So, KE Igoshev, in his report at a meeting of the Scientific Council on Youth Problems on October 16, 1989, cited the following data. The number of persons prosecuted for involving minors in criminal and antisocial activities has been steadily declining. If in 1980 this figure was 1,100 people, then in 1983 it dropped to 900 people, and in 1988 - to 500. rural areas, which is largely due to the influence of previously convicted persons. Minors are especially vulnerable to criminal elements. Teenage antisocial groups become fertile ground for the cultivation of a criminal, camp subculture, for their use by older and cynical persons for criminal purposes.The task of timely detection and suppression of the facts of targeted criminalization of teenage companies by adult criminals, first of all, should be carried out by law enforcement agencies.

A different approach is required by asocial groups, in which criminalization proceeds independently, spontaneously, without outside influence, due to internal socio-psychological mechanisms, when self-assertion of adolescents occurs in the form of asocial manifestations, and the resulting competitive effect turns out to be the main factor in criminalization.

As noted above, such groups, on the one hand, seem to be isolated, isolated from the outside world, on the other hand, they are quite firmly “cemented” from within by their own “code of honor,” the influence and authority of their leaders. And therefore, by the strong-willed efforts of teachers, parents, employees of the IDN, etc. it can be very difficult to disassociate them or prohibit individual teenagers from communicating with their old street companies.

Neutralization of the influence of such a criminogenic group should begin with reorientation or discrediting of the leader. This is most successfully accomplished when such groups in their entirety are included in a healthy collective and gradually begin to live according to the laws of this collective. An experiment on the reorientation of criminogenic teenage groups was carried out at the club. F.E.Dzerzhinsky, Tyumen. The experiment was carried out with five criminogenic teenage groups, including a total of about 70 teenagers, almost all of whom were registered with the IDN. These groups were involved in the club through their leaders, and the main motive that brought them to the club, in most cases, was the desire to go in for sports, to master the techniques of sambo, karate. However, before moving on to wrestling, all newcomers to the club were forced to go through a quarantine period, during which they had to learn the rules and laws of club life. Self-government during this period in groups was carried out through their leaders, the whole group as a whole, without breaking up, became one unit, the primary collective in the club. During the quarantine period, that is, during the adaptation period in the club, the leader faces a choice; either he had to meet the demands of collective life, reorient himself and reorient the guys "or, showing resistance to the leadership, violating club traditions, gradually discredited himself in the eyes of his comrades, losing his authority and influence on them. At the same time, humanization of relations in the group was carried out. fights, physical reprisals "insults followed punishment, outfits out of turn, suspension from sports activities, the weak were taken under protection. And the guys themselves, seeing the possibility of a different relationship, rebelled against insults and violence. The reorientation of the group ended with the fact that they merged with the team of the club: they abandoned the closed grouping, which they initially valued so much, began to actively participate in various collective affairs.

Thus, the process of reorientation of a criminogenic teenage group consists of three main stages:

1. Stage of group autonomy, during which a criminal group is identified and involved in the team. At this stage, it is especially important to interest the leader in the activities of the club. At the same time, it is important to show respect for the group as a whole, not trying to split it at the initial period.

2. Leadership reorganization... The group is formed as an independent organizational and structural unit in the club, headed by its former leader, who, however, works under the direct supervision of the club's self-government bodies and is forced to ensure that all his requirements are met. This is the so-called quarantine period, which lasts about 2 - 3 months, during which time the children get involved in the routine of collective life, they are physically trained. At this time, the teenager, as it were, earns the right to practice his favorite sport, and the commander confirms his ability to lead a group in a collective life.

It should be noted that, as experience has shown, leaders in these cases either actively participate in the life of the collective and reorient themselves quite easily, demonstrating outstanding organizational skills, or discredit themselves.

As an example of such a "reoriented" leader, we can cite Kostya A. He is a strong-willed, energetic, proactive teenager with heightened self-esteem. In all matters and confusion, he strives to be ahead of his comrades. The need to obey someone is difficult. At first, he supported the demands of the team only because he wanted to excel in everything. Gradually, there was a kind of restructuring of motives. Kostya became actively involved in the club's many-sided life, learned the norms and principles of collective life, took them as his own, and became one of the best organizers in the club.

However, some leaders strive to maintain their influence using the old methods, show covert and explicit resistance to the demands of collective life, and in such cases it becomes necessary to discredit such a leader in the eyes of the children.

Sasha V. ignored the demands of the collective and the teachers' council, continued to secretly play cards for money in the club, provoked conflicts between his guys, managing according to the principle of "divide and conquer", humiliated the weak. However, he did not leave the club, since the prestige of the club member was too high, and there was too much desire to engage in the power forks of sports. For a long time, such a relationship in the group could not persist. The adolescents saw and appreciated the possibility of new relationships, and a feeling of security appeared. The purposeful work of the teachers also played a role. The group demanded that Sasha be expelled from the club, which was done after a while, unable to bear the position of an exiled, he returned to the club and asked to reinstate him. But leadership positions were already lost. So, at the second stage, along with the work on reorientation or discrediting the leader, "it is very important to humanize relations in the group, to show the children the possibility of other relationships so that they have a sense of security and trust in the new team.

3. Merging the group with the club staff... At this stage, the group ceases to be a closed association and is included in the general system of collective activity and broad ties with all members of the collective. This is facilitated by participation in joint affairs, labor activities, in councils, affairs for the preparation of various club events, comradely and friendly relations that are struck with the guys.

So, we have traced the path of a possible reorientation of asocial adolescent groups when they are included in healthy children's groups. Such collectives can be various socio-pedagogical centers (teenage clubs and associations, summer camps for work and rest), that is, temporary collectives, which seem to play the role of resocialization institutions that can restore the social status of an individual "difficult" teenager, so and reorient the entire antisocial group.

However, the implementation of these very complex tasks of resocialization is possible only if there is a close-knit, solid team and high pedagogical skills of educators.

In order for the collective of the socio-pedagogical center to successfully fulfill their resocializing, restorative functions both in relation to a separate "difficult" and in relation to asocial adolescent groups, it is necessary that it be formed in accordance with certain socio-psychological and psychological-pedagogical conditions and patterns.

The advantage of such centers is that they will create an opportunity to reeducate the "difficult" not only by methods of individual psychological and pedagogical correction, but also by including them in the system of new relations based on the collective socially useful activities of children. Resocializing collectives, creating a favorable environment for the formation of the personality of socially neglected adolescents, are able to actively resist the influence of their former street companies, asocial groups, rebuild the asocial orientation of the “difficult” ones, and restore their asocial status. They play, in fact, the role of intermediate links, where there is a kind of training of the lost social skills of socially neglected adolescents.

The voluntariness of visiting such kind of leisure social and pedagogical centers entails a number of features that distinguish educational and correctional and rehabilitation work in them from similar activities of general education schools, closed-type rehabilitation institutions.

First of all, as we have already indicated above, there should be a high individual motivation that attracts a teenager to such a club, associated with the possibility of choosing an activity according to his interests and, first of all, with sports that develop the physical characteristics of a teenager and increase his sense of security. This motivation also includes the satisfaction of the need for communication and self-affirmation, the development of various interests and hobbies. Taking into account the voluntariness of visiting leisure socio-pedagogical centers, unlike schools, as well as closed educational institutions, they are characterized by the presence of a "diffuse layer", that is, some part of loose, hesitant children who visit the club irregularly. Freedom of choice of occupation, collective creative activity, which, first of all, attracts to the club, does not allow organizing and planning all its activities: here a lot is designed for amateur performance, creativity, free communication of children, their relative autonomy from adults.

These features of children's associations and clubs at the place of residence were well understood by the creator of the prototypes of the first socio-pedagogical centers in Russia, S. T. Shatsky. He came up with the idea of ​​organizing the first children's society "Setlement" in 1905, which existed for only three years and was closed by the Black Hundreds in 1908. Subsequently, in 1911, ST. Shatsky resumed his activities by organizing a summer children's colony "Vigorous Life". He proceeded from those organizational and pedagogical principles that ordinary educational children's institutions are organized on the basis of the requirements that society and the state impose on children, regardless of the nature of children and the needs of this age. The work of the club, on the contrary, in his opinion, should be conducted proceeding from the "play of children's instincts."

S. T. Shatsky wrote: "The embryo of the idea of ​​a children's club lies in free children's organizations, which often cause great anxiety to adults. These are street, country, country, factory free children's organizations. They arise thanks to a powerful social instinct and are good because they are free, mobile, in close contact with life and diversity. "

Thus, already at that time, S. T. Shatskiy understood and in practice found the main way, thanks to which it is possible to resist the frightening adult street elements. The solution to this problem lies in social and pedagogical activities to create a social upbringing environment based on those age-related needs for communication, self-affirmation, which generate street courtyard companies and informal teenage groups.

The idea of ​​creating social and pedagogical centers, teenage clubs, summer camps for work and recreation all these years with varying degrees of intensity developed in different cities on the initiative of various organizations and departments. In the mid-60s, Komsomol organizations of large factories and universities in Leningrad launched an active work on the creation of specialized military-patriotic clubs, summer labor and recreation camps for high school students under the pedagogical guidance of S. A. Alekseev.

In the 70s, a wide network of multidisciplinary children's and adolescent clubs at the place of residence was created in Kiev under the leadership and initiative of the Deputy Head of the City Housing Administration S. Ye. Shcherbatyuk. In the same years, using the material support and the base of the regional council of trade unions and relying on the experience developed in the military-patriotic teenage club named after Dzerzhinsky (head of the GA, Nechaev), a network of teenage clubs began to grow in Tyumen. Moscow), A.K.Bratova (club of young aviators "Kinap" in Odessa), N.A.Kataev (multidisciplinary teenage club "Kaleidoscope" in Kirov) search and interesting discoveries in a fairly new and unexplored branch of pedagogical science and practice - social pedagogy - and hundreds of grateful destinies for children, which would hardly have taken place without these clubs.

However, almost thirty years of experience in creating socio-pedagogical centers in our country brought not only pedagogical findings and achievements, but also some rather bitter observations and conclusions about why it is so difficult to develop social pedagogy in practice, why such unstable dynamics have already developed and operating teenage clubs and centers? Unfortunately, despite all the unconditional advantages that distinguish such clubs for preventive practice and normal social development of adolescents and young people, they are created and kept mainly on the altruism and dedication of their pedagogical leaders and inspirers.

In order for socio-pedagogical centers of various profiles and directions to take their rightful place in the system of educational and preventive social institutions, it is necessary to solve a set of issues of organizational "material and technical, personnel, scientific, methodological and psychological and pedagogical support of this promising area of ​​preventive practice.

First of all, the municipal authorities need a center for social and socio-pedagogical work, which could competently resolve the issues of coordination and support of the activities of various departments to create teenage and youth clubs and associations. Such support could go through targeted financing and preferential taxation, which would stimulate the social activity of enterprises and commercial structures. It is also necessary to provide municipal premises for working with children and adolescents and centralized professional training of cadres of social teachers. It is the unresolved nature of all these problems that slows down and hinders the development of social and pedagogical centers and complexes, without which it is difficult to count on effective work on the social improvement of the younger generation.

In turn, the need for professional training of social workers and teachers and the introduction into widespread practice of socio-pedagogical forms of work with children and youth requires the activation of applied psychological and pedagogical research, which makes it possible to scientifically comprehend the emerging experience, to develop the content of "methods and socio-psychological laws of social pedagogy. and social and educational rehabilitation.

It should be noted that in connection with the introduction of the specialty of a social teacher and social worker, which was done in Russia only in 1990 and 1991, there were serious advances both in the training of professional personnel for social and socio-pedagogical work, and in the development of the corresponding scientific and methodological base. At the same time, the lag in the creation of social organizational and administrative structures of municipal bodies and functioning socio-psychological and socio-pedagogical centers was revealed even more sharply. The same can be said about the material and financial support of social preventive programs, the main mechanism of which - preferential taxation - has not been put into effect.

Savings on the social health of young people and underestimation of the importance of complex medical-psychological and social-pedagogical measures of social prevention have to pay dearly in the present and even more in the near future. This price is the failed fates of young people who today cause social harm with their social deviations, and tomorrow they will not be able to reproduce physically and spiritually healthy offspring, for which, in the final analysis, all cardinal political and economic transformations in our country have been undertaken.

Questions and tasks for chapter VII

1. Classification of informal adolescent and youth associations and groups with different social orientation.

2. Socio-psychological mechanisms and levels of development of criminogenic teenage groups.

3. The structural composition of criminogenic teenage groups,

4. Leadership processes and other social and psychological phenomena in criminogenic teenage groups.

5. Social and legal protection of teenage associations from criminal elements,

6. Characteristics of the conditions and stages of reorientation of asocial groups due to the inclusion in the collective of the social and pedagogical center,

7. The history of development and the current state of the network of various social and educational centers and complexes.

Just like the social structures of adults, adolescent societies can be divided into formal and informal groups. Informal societies usually refer to loosely structured groups of out-of-school youth who come together but have few opportunities to participate in a formally organized network of social relationships. An exception is teenage street gangs, which exist as separate independent subgroups.

According to psychologists, 75% of minors commit crimes (robbery, robbery, theft, hooliganism) in the composition of the groups.Juvenile delinquency- this is gang crimes.

Psychological characteristics of adolescence

The famous American psychologist Stanley Hall called the period of puberty a period of "storm and onslaught." Development at this stage proceeds at a rapid pace, especially many changes are observed in terms of personality formation. The main feature of a teenager is personal instability.

Anna Freud noted: “Adolescents are extremely selfish, consider themselves the center of the Universe and the only subject worthy of interest, and at the same time, in no subsequent period of their lives are they capable of such devotion and self-sacrifice ... On the one hand, they are enthusiastically involved in community life, and on the other - they are gripped by a passion for loneliness. They hesitate between blind obedience to their chosen leader and a defiant rebellion against any and all authority ... Sometimes their behavior towards other people is grossly unceremonious, although they themselves are incredibly vulnerable. Their mood fluctuates between radiant optimism and the darkest pessimism ... "

Leading activities during this period - communication... At this time, children have many acquaintances and informal groups or companies are formed. Teenagers can be united in a group not only by mutual sympathy, but also by common interests, activities, ways of entertainment, a place for spending free time. What a teenager receives from a group and what he can give her depends on the level of development of the group to which he belongs.

In this age period, children are so attracted to each other, their communication is so intense that they speak of a typical adolescent "grouping reaction".

Another significant area of ​​adolescent relations is relations with adults, primarily with parents. According to data collected over the past ten years in the United States, 36 it is clear that adolescents do not focus only on their peers or only on their parents. The younger the teenager, the more likely they are to agree with the values ​​and habits of their parents, and the less peer influence. As can be seen from the table, at this age, parents to a greater extent determined even the choice of clothing and food.

Relationship between parent and peer influence on a number of issues (study by Thompson, D.N., 1985)

	Parents (%)	Peers (%)	Best friend (%)
Choosing clothes for school
What clothes to buy
When to come home
Whether to attend a party
Food preferences
How to spend money
How to spend your free time
What TV shows to watch
Music selection
Choosing reading material
Manner of speech
Code of Conduct
Church visit
Opinions about people
Sports preferences
Tips for personal problems
Hairstyle
Choice of clubs

The degree of orientation toward parents or peers depends on socioeconomic status and gender. For example, boys have more disagreements with their parents than girls, but if girls do not agree with their parents in some way, as a rule, this is revealed at an earlier age, which is a manifestation of earlier maturity in women.

Young people who have strong emotional attachment to their parents are more likely to have a “parental” orientation than those who are hostile to their parents or reject them.

No matter how much parents and educators would like, 85% of all adolescents go through spontaneous group communication. In domestic preventive psychology, there are three types of elemental groups:

Prosocial, or socially positive;

asocial(standing aside from social problems, with their own narrow group values);

antisocial, or socially negative.

3/5 of teenage groups are classified as pro-social: ecological societies, cultural and socio-political organizations, etc. Intermediate leisure groups include “fans”, “rockers”, “metalheads”, “breakers”, etc.

All these groups are a breeding ground for criminogenic groups. The main reason for their occurrence is the "prohibitive" attitude of adults towards youth fashion and reassurance. The best way to deal with them is "legalization", giving them free choice when they feel free and independent.

Special group - informal associations where the connecting rod is:

Lifestyle

• spiritual values

  paraphernalia

Hippie- complete freedom, including sex; equality and tolerance; refusal of any regulation.

Punks- internal hierarchy; the ritual of "omission"; cynical attitude towards girls; disdain for the law and the criminal code; decrease in the value of one's own life.

Highlafists- propaganda of "beautiful life"; refined manners; luxurious lifestyle; career aspirations; limitation of contacts with "dullness", "cattle".

Prerequisites for unfavorable dynamics of a group social orientation: isolation, corporatism, isolation.

Deviant subcultures

Satanism- a blatant challenge to the dominant system of values ​​in society. They often create rituals based on occult books, album covers, movies, videos, and heavy metal rock bands. Often witnessing or engaging in physical or sexual abuse of animals or people that has a profound traumatic effect on both victims and participants, leading to serious mental illness.

For some teenagers, participation in such groups is just an expression of ordinary youthful rebellion. It was found that the families of Satanist teenagers, as a rule, are dysfunctional: parents are prone to violence, the family is incomplete; hereditary mental illness, parental alcoholism, lack of love for, rejection, or harsh criticism of the teenager may have an impact. Often the cult is turned to by someone who has become a "scapegoat" or "black sheep" in the family, they are the ones who tend to identify themselves with evil and look for the company of other "fiends of hell".

Skinheads (skinheads) Is the most aggressive group of white racists. Promote hatred, bigotry and violence against minorities. They often shave their heads, wear black leather jackets, suspenders, rolled up jeans and heavy boots; tattoo themselves and wear symbols that reflect ideas of neo-Nazism, white supremacy and racial violence. Most gang members are between 16 and 19 years old, but mostly gangs are made up of teenagers 13-14 years old, whipping up their courage with drugs. They are usually from broken families and many of them were abused in childhood.

Asocial groups in which the environment forms and stimulates the motivation of antisocial behavior: criminogenic and criminal.

Ass. Pilieva D.E.

Department of Sociology and Political Science.

North Caucasian Mining and Metallurgical Institute (State Technological University)

The participation of individuals in a group is considered as a natural human need. It is here that the interaction of the individual and society takes place, certain mores, habits, and stereotypes of behavior develop.

The concept of man as a social being and subject of social life is the starting point of social science and sociological research. The existence of a specific individual in society presupposes his interaction with other social subjects, and his formation in society occurs through socialization, understanding values, patterns and norms of behavior, and attitude towards his environment.

The collective (family, educational, labor, informal, "according to interests") is a society in miniature, it is here that you can see with your own eyes how the interaction of the individual and society takes place. An individual bears the seal of his collective, and the collective — the seal of its constituent personalities, members. Forming a personality, the team itself is formed by the combination of different unique individuals. The personality does not dissolve, does not drown in the team, but is realized, asserts itself.

In each group, certain morals, customs, habits, and stereotypes of behavior develop. They are assimilated by its members and distinguish this group from others. At the same time, the individual develops the consciousness of this group and its tasks. The group, through the influence on individuals, directs their behavior towards the achievement of group goals. Moreover, these goals can be of a different nature. Man, being a social being, a subject of a social

satisfies the need for protection and safety. The group also plays a supportive role: together it is easier for people to overcome "negative" emotions. In a group, they calm down, get distracted, and receive additional information. The group influences the formation of the individual's ideas, his behavior and attitudes, thinking, the system of social norms.

Thus, the need to participate in a group is a natural need for every person. This need becomes especially urgent for such a social group as adolescents due to their specific psychological situation.

As a teenager grows up, the hierarchy of interests and needs changes. Peer society becomes especially important during this period. And they are not susceptible to any other cohort as they are to their adolescent environment, be it with positive or negative orientations and attitudes. The specificity of socialization through a peer group is a decisive factor in the transmission of information, behavior patterns, fashion, and the possibility of self-affirmation. In children and adolescents, the group motive, group solidarity, and group behavior - following the way of life, actions, norms of behavior of the group, and submission to its fashion are the leading ones.

A number of sociological studies have shown that the informal group, rather than the family and school, often has a decisive influence on adolescents. It is the informal group that acts as the main socializing institution in adolescence. Peer groups occupy an intermediate position between the family and the school, between the family and the social system as a whole. By managing the transition of adolescents' worldview from private values ​​to social values, peer groups perform the function of providing their members with a certain way of behavior, self-identification and self-affirmation.

Communication with peers is predominant for a teenager. It is important for him not only to be with his peers, but the main thing is to occupy a position that satisfies him among them. The formation in adolescents of a sense of solidarity, camaraderie and mutual understanding not only facilitates his autonomy from adults, but also creates for him a background of emotional well-being and stability.

Most sociologists and psychologists believe that the adolescent's gravitation towards an informal peer group increases as his relations with family and school deteriorate. Teenagers, feeling rejected, misunderstood in the family, rejected by the school, seek refuge in the society of their own kind. In these cases, the assessment of the values ​​and norms of peers becomes more convincing and meaningful for the adolescent than those that exist among the elders. An essential point to which attention should be paid is that the greater the discrepancy between the attractiveness of peer values ​​and the values ​​of adults, the more the influence of peer groups on the adolescent grows, the more and more the process of his autonomy and alienation from the adult environment takes place. It was at this time that there was a gap in the system of values, norms, stereotypes of behavior of parents and children. Even the simple lack of participation of parents in raising children plays a significant role for them - the opportunity to be influenced by friends.

Participation in informal groups is a natural phenomenon for adolescents. It is explained by the following points:

reorientation of communication with parents towards peers, weakening the influence of the family;

marginality of social status (no longer a child, but not yet an adult), which contributes to the emergence of instability, awkwardness, and anxiety in behavior;

the need to meet the needs of a teenager in communication, protection, solidarity in behavior;

the transition of forms of control from children to adults;

difficulties of adolescence.

informal adolescent groups, on the one hand, play a positive role in society, contributing to the socialization of adolescents. On the other hand, these needs are breeding grounds for the criminal subculture.

Among the social factors contributing to the arrival of minors in informal groups, the main ones turned out to be: impossibility of self-realization in the family, school, public organizations; conflicts with parents, teachers. The identified motives are quite traditional: the desire to spend free time, lack of adults and control, unusual adventures and experiences, common interests. However, external reasons make one think that this is internal loneliness and a desire to find friends, respect for others, a rather high alienation from the norms and values ​​of an individual's active creative life. Loneliness reflects the need to belong to a group, and as our research shows, adolescents are much more likely than older people to feel lonely and misunderstood. The feeling of loneliness associated with the age-related difficulties of personality formation gives rise to the need for adolescents to communicate and group with their peers, in whose society they are looking for what adults refuse them: emotional warmth, salvation from boredom, recognition of their own worth.

The adolescent's entry into the informal peer group is also stimulated by the absence or lack of positive social ties with the formal group (at school). Thus, 92.2% of difficult adolescents are alienated, psychologically isolated from their schoolmates; almost all of them were dissatisfied with their position in the class; many treated classmates negatively. School is increasingly pushing back and isolating underachieving adolescents, as a result of which being in it becomes unbearable for them: it pushes out delinquent students, and they, in turn, have a negative attitude towards their teachers and experience discomfort in the student environment. Thus, the absence of positive social ties in a teenager with a family and formal (educational) group makes the informal peer group the most attractive for him, and interaction with its members is often the only thread connecting him with society.

A teenager who is deprived of positive emotional ties in the family and does not have the opportunity to express himself in a formal group experiences negative emotions and, trying to get rid of them, joins the group. The group in this case plays a supportive role for subjects solving similar problems. N. Smelzer reveals this provision with a figurative comparison: “Trouble loves company”. In addition, in a situation where a teenager is rejected by the family and not accepted by the formal collective, his need for respect of others is blocked. Such a state is a fundamental human need and, being unrealized, hinders the satisfaction of other, higher-level needs - in love, caring for others, self-expression, creativity. Joining a teenager's group in this case can be seen as a real chance to satisfy the need for respect - to be accepted and recognized, respected by others. Such a company is quite satisfying for a teenager. She often replaces all family and emotional ties for him. According to the results of our research carried out in 2000 - 2001. among juvenile offenders registered with the inspectorates for juvenile affairs in Vladikavkaz and undergoing correction for committing offenses in the Vladikavkaz special school, 85% of children note that they are quite satisfied with the company of friends. Joining a group and further interaction with its members can be seen as an attempt to compensate for the frustrated needs of a teenager.

The adolescents who join the group are completely "immersed" in it and participation in this group becomes their dominant in life. In a group, teenagers spend most of their free time. It is known that the frequency, duration and number of contacts with deviants affect the intensity of adolescents' assimilation of deviant values: prolonged interaction with delinquents forms a positive attitude towards them. Moreover, if the frequency of interaction between two or more persons increases, then the degree of sympathy between them increases. In this case, a teenager who falls into a group with a deviant or delinquent orientation increases the likelihood of deviant behavior. This is confirmed by the results of our research, which shows that "friends from the street" do not have any positive socializing influence, but on the contrary - by introducing a teenager to their subculture, they contribute to the degradation of his personality. The scale of such an influence is also evidenced by the table compiled according to the results of our study.

Adolescents within their group have their own version of the culture called subculture. The formation of an independent subculture takes place on the basis of communication between minors for a certain time and the development of their own goals. This youth subculture is very uniform and subject to strong group pressure. The result of socialization in the primary group of adolescents is the formation of community members similar to each other.

Distribution of answers to the question: “What is negative

Do friends and acquaintances influence you? "

(in% of the number of respondents to the question)

A typical feature of adolescent groups is a high degree of conformity. Teens are often uncritical about the opinions of the group and its leaders. The desire to be "like everyone else", which extends to clothing, aesthetic tastes, and most importantly, to the style of behavior, often leads to various deviations.

Thus, primary adolescent groups, due to the fact that they are marginal in relation to society, have a subculture different from it - a subculture, contain elements of disorganization in their structure - they potentially carry a charge of deviant behavior. Delinquent (illegal) behavior is a fairly common form of deviation in adolescents. These groups, united by the way of spending time, include minors who are united by loneliness, inability to find a worthy occupation for themselves. These are mainly spontaneously emerging leisure groups, in which minors spend almost all their free time, making up for the lack of social and emotional comfort they experience for various reasons and in which their antisocial views, attitudes, and behavioral habits are formed or aggravated.

Teenagers are characterized by “the thirst for constant receipt of new information that does not require any critical intellectual processing, as well as the need for superficial contacts ... this is hours of idle chatter, staring at what is happening around, detective-adventure novels and books, watching everything on TV, gambling hobby - playing money and cards ", ie. aimless pastime, named by every second teenager as their favorite activity in their free time. The results of our research show that adolescents more often like to spend their free time on the street with friends (63.8%) than at home with their parents (36.2%), and they are friends with them because they are interested and have fun together (72, 1%) and uninteresting and bad at home (27.9%).

Teenage groups that practice “empty” activities as their main form of leisure, bringing together bored minors, often become fertile ground for antisocial behavior. As the Eastern wisdom says - "an unoccupied mind is the devil's workshop." It is no coincidence that most of these adolescents are taken to the police while intoxicated, they use narcotic active substances.

These informal groups are the breeding ground for group crime. Antisocial groups of adolescents, often at war with each other, often abuse alcohol, toxic substances, drugs, commit various types of offenses (fights, thefts, robberies, extortion and other illegal acts), are a breeding ground for group crime, which in most cases leads to crime ...

Bibliography

1. Shur E. Our criminal society. M., 1997.

2. Smelzer N. Sociology. M .: Phoenix, 1994.

3. Lichko A. Psychopathology and character accentuation in adolescents. SPb., 1993.

4. Pozdnyakova ME Sociological analysis of drug addiction. Moscow, RAS, Institute of Sociology, 1995.

In order to understand adolescents and young men from informal youth groups, it is necessary to know the history of the emergence and development of these groups, their modern types, the reasons for their occurrence. Only after this can you develop your attitude towards them and outline the means of educational influence.

Informal youth groups have become most pronounced at the present time. Their emergence is associated with the rejection of adolescents and young people of the socio-economic systems, social and spiritual values ​​that have developed in their countries. This is a protest against the existing order and the search for more just and worthy forms of human existence.

This protest intensified significantly during the period of social upheavals and crises. Small groups of young people began to appear in significant numbers, striving to isolate themselves from the surrounding society, to oppose themselves to it. They had special hairstyles and clothes, specific gestures, language, ways of behavior and special forms of art, primarily music. They are characterized by a keen interest in themselves and their kind, in music, and at the same time, an awakening desire to participate in political life. Such are the beatniks, who do not have a permanent residence, who live in basements, wear primitive clothes. They defiantly oppose their way of life to the bourgeois comfort they despise. They are busy looking for the meaning of life and do not reject work, but only at will and as far as it is necessary to maintain life. Many of them speak directly about their disappointment in adults and, having not found their solution to important political problems, deliberately withdraw from participation in the political life of society.

“Get high! Don't think about anything! " - such is the moral of a fairly significant part of the youth. A growing number of Satanists are seeking to subvert the deepest foundations of spirituality. The idea began to take root in many youth communes. sexual revolution, new and free relationships between the sexes, some of them have common sexual partners. Challenging the existing society, fake forms of intimate relationships. Sexual liberation preachers engage in public sex acts. Enterprising businessmen use this explosion of interests of adolescents and young people in sex: there are a lot of sex shops, sex magazines, erotic centers.

In the process of socialization of the personality of a teenager, informal spontaneous groups of peers, which arise on the basis of joint leisure activities, have a great influence.

It was found that the leisure activities of former juvenile offenders significantly differed from that characteristic of adolescents with similar socio-demographic characteristics, but not breaking the law. Leisure activities of offenders have their own specifics: it prevails over all others (study, sports, various types of socially useful extracurricular activities).

Offenders are characterized by relationships with individuals with similar attitudes, attitudes and behaviors. Often such interpersonal relationships take on an antisocial orientation, thus becoming criminogenic. They are established and developed mainly in the sphere of leisure activities of already quite demoralized adolescents.

They drive in large groups on night streets at high speed (sometimes up to 140-160 km / h), with mufflers removed. Often there is a rocker in the back seat. Rushing at them at breakneck speed through the deserted streets of big cities, rockers experience "a sense of sweet liberation from the shackles of society." Rockers strive to find the ideals of life that satisfy them in communication with their own kind, in their rock clubs. Many rockers don't have a driver's license. There have been cases of theft of other people's motorcycles, refueling from gas tanks of other people's cars. In some cases, they come into contact with criminal elements who hire them to escort their cars and other unseemly cases.

Of course, the formation of leisure comradely groups cannot be regarded as something reprehensible, socially dangerous. They are quite natural for this age group. Moreover, the children's need for communication is most satisfied in such spontaneous informal groups. This is largely due to the lack of attention to the adolescent on the part of loved ones, who limit communication with him almost exclusively to concern for his basic needs (food, clothing, pocket money, etc.). The teenager would like to see in the parents not so much "breadwinners" as friends and advisers. For all their craving for independence, adolescents are in dire need of life experience, help and support from their elders. However, the real relationship of adolescents with their parents is often burdened with conflicts based on misunderstanding of each other.

Lack of adult attention is not the only reason that prompts adolescents to seek out a peer group. An equally important motive is the desire for informal communication, communication that is emotionally significant. The ultimate goal of such emotional communication is not only to spend leisure time, but also to get the adolescent information about the attitude of his peers towards him, that is, in determining his personal status, and, ultimately, in self-realization.

The quality of communication, and, consequently, the completeness of satisfying the need for it in a teenager may be different. There are three levels of communication: definition - a simple perception of information at the level of a communicative hobby, in which the adolescent's attitude towards the environment does not change and it is not accompanied by emotional reactions; identification, in which the personality of the listener undergoes some change: identifying himself with a partner, that is, assuming his "role", the listener assimilates, albeit partially, the system of his relations to other people, to events and phenomena, a new system for him values; empathy (empathy) - when a teenager completely merges with a communication partner, when he lives with him, acts, experiences. It is clear that the emotional involvement of a teenager, the degree of satisfaction of his need for communication will be different in each case. The adolescent strives for the most emotionally intense level of communication (the level of empathy) due to the feeling of loneliness, which, as psychologists note, is most acutely experienced in adolescence.

Even more extreme positions are taken by "skinheads", "skinheads", "skinheads". Their difficult existence gave rise to a blind hatred of wealthier people and a desire for undisguised violence towards others. They form the main "cadres" of neo-Nazism. However, their ranks are not uniform. Not every skinhead is a fascist. For many of them, participation in these groups is only a means of expressing their protest against the indifferent attitude of society towards them. There are also known groups of poppers who deny negation. They condemn the critical and protesting generation of their "left" fathers, strive not to see the bad in life and enjoy the benefits that are available. Punks are very famous in the modern world. Feeling abandoned and betrayed by society, they, indignantly, deliberately seek to evoke a negative reaction from the members of this society, even self-loathing. "Shock and provoke!" is their slogan. This is especially true for punk rock bands. Such views find expression even in the appearance of punks, strikingly different from all other people: they have clean-shaven skulls, extravagant hairstyles, fancifully painted faces with red or black paint. Clothing styles: leather jacket on a naked body, canvas fabric on a thin shirt with a frill. Torn clothes (jeans, leather jackets), chains on the face, causing dog collars and toilet chains on the necks. Many of them look to the future gloomily and hopelessly, but some groups find their way out in progressive forms of political struggle. Punk jargon is rude, behavior is often defiantly obscene. Many of them use drugs and toxins. They move from city to city, establish connections with each other. Their appearance in the city is usually associated with an increase in the number of fights, robberies and other forms of violence with the aim of outraging a person.

Due to the lack of deep understanding between adolescents and adults, especially among "difficult" children, they can achieve the highest level of emotional communication among their peers - in spontaneous informal leisure groups. In the process of such communication with peers, a teenager seeks to express his inner world, his experiences and states. At the same time, in the process of experiencing, he strives for self-expression, as if he requires understanding of himself by others. If others do not understand the inner world of a teenager, that is, they do not empathize or inadequately empathize, then in interpersonal communication a certain dissonance arises, a violation of mental balance, which leads to conflict situations, a state of frustration, accompanied by affective aggressive outbursts.

It should be noted that communication at the level of empathy presents certain difficulties for adolescents, since it requires high psychological preparation, psychological experience, which they still lack.

The main mechanisms of empathic communication are projection and introjection. Projection in interpersonal relationships means attributing your characteristics, inclinations, motivations and feelings to other people. Introjection is the opposite process. It is understood as a person's ascribing to himself the inclinations, motives, experiences and feelings of other people. Through introjection, a person (interlocutor) creates an internal picture of the personality traits and mental states of other people (communication partners).

At the first stage of communication, projection is carried out either in the form of identifying (transferring) one's personal qualities and motives with the personal qualities and motives of the partner, or in the form of assimilating the partner's personal characteristics to those standards that are developed on the basis of ideas about other people.

In the process of introjection, there is, as it were, absorption, that is, absorption, absorption of the image of another person, his internal state.

But, despite the difficulty of achieving a truly deep emotional communication between a teenager and peers, communication with them in informal groups, nevertheless, allows you to satisfy the following needs:

safe (protected);

in the removal (discharge) of neuropsychic stress;

in understanding, sympathy, empathy;

in friendship (in the feeling of being needed by another);

in independence, independence, autonomy from adults;

in a positive assessment, respect from peers equal to themselves (gaining personal status);

in asserting oneself, gaining popularity, recognition (acquiring social status);

in obtaining new information;

in achieving emotional comfort.

The tendency inherent in adolescents, members of leisure groups, to oppose themselves to the world around them, is manifested by adults in a number of features of their behavior, which are demonstrative in nature. This includes, first of all, such signs (symbols) of their independence and opposition to adults, as clothing features, jargon (youthful argo). The terms used by adolescents are often rude, emphatically conventional, quite often words are given a meaning opposite to their usual meaning, borrowing of words from the thieves' lexicon is often encountered. All this verbal play serves the function of separating "insiders" from "outsiders" and also strengthens group solidarity.

It is also important to take into account the lack of social experience of adolescents, their not quite developed criticality of consciousness with a significantly increased social activity and the desire for independence and independence. It is necessary to take into account the need of adolescents to communicate with an exemplary group of peers for them, and the desire to become like them. To all this is often added the lack of employment in an interesting and useful activity for them in school and outside it, the lack of prestigious communication and positive incentives for active and emotionally intense activity, the impossibility of self-determination and self-expression by the available means. Families that are completely absorbed in obtaining material means of subsistence or strive only for enrichment, with low spiritual needs and little social activity, have a negative impact on adolescents. This has become especially evident in recent years, which have exposed many of the shortcomings of our life. It is necessary to find a common language with informals, to understand the problems of interest to them, to know the history of specific youth groups, their positive and negative sides. In discussions with informals, the equality of the parties should be recognized and respected, and tolerance should be shown. This is especially necessary at the present time, when an increasing number of middle and high school students are expressing dissatisfaction with the existing forms of extracurricular and extracurricular work.