Prior Criminal Offense As A Prerequisite For Secondary Criminal Activity

Abstract

In recent years, the legal literature has begun to use the concept of secondary crime, which has long been used in German criminal law and is based on the theory of involvement in a crime. An analysis of the domestic criminal law literature suggests that this concept has not yet been sufficiently disclosed by anyone. It should be noted that the problems of involvement in the crime are given much less attention than, for example, complicity. This can be explained by the fact that involvement is considered by individual scholars within the institute of complicity.

The term «preceding» is intended to emphasize the fact that the commission of the main elements of a criminal offense is not possible without a previous, simultaneous or subsequent actual commission, or without a previously formed intention to commit another criminal offense. In this regard, it should be noted: speaking of «precedence», we do not mean strictly temporal dependence, when one action objectively precedes in time another, and mental-logical dependence, when one action or actually precedes another, or on at least exists in the plan to commit the latter. The previous crime is not part of the main structure of the criminal offense, remaining an independent component. Such a criminal offense only complements the feature of the main criminal offense with a special meaning, narrows it and thus describes, although in itself does not turn into a feature of this composition of the main criminal offense.