It is practiced to impose penalties for crimes of less serious and moderate severity.

The review was carried out in accordance with the work plan of the East Kazakhstan regional court for the 1st half of 2014. In the preparation of the review, statistical data of the East Kazakhstan regional court, data from the UAPF program of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan were used, and the experience of district and equivalent courts in imposing criminal penalties for crimes of medium and low severity was studied. In the course of the review, it was found that in the process of considering criminal cases, the courts correctly apply and make decisions on crimes of moderate and low severity in the form of deprivation of liberty, as well as other punishments in accordance with the requirements of the law. However, there are also errors in individual cases. The penalty of imprisonment is imposed in accordance with Article 48 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Code). Punishment is a measure of state coercion imposed by a court verdict. The penalty applies to a person found guilty of committing a crime and is the deprivation or restriction of a person from his rights and freedoms provided for by this code.

Punishment is applied in order to restore social justice, as well as to correct the convicted person and insure against the commission of new crimes by both the convicted person and other persons. Recently, many measures have been taken to mitigate criminal penalties against persons who have committed crimes that are not so dangerous to society, that is, to reduce the application of prison sentences to convicts, and, on the contrary, to expand the scope of alternative punishments, amendments and additions have been made to the relevant laws. In particular, amendments were made to the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated January 18, 2011 No. 393-IV" on amendments and additions to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on further humanization of criminal legislation and strengthening guarantees of legality in criminal proceedings". This law has been supplemented by Parts 5 and 6 of Article 53 of the Criminal Code: if the sanction of the article of the special part of this code, which served as the basis for recognizing a person guilty, provides for various (alternative) types of punishment in the presence of mitigating circumstances provided for in paragraph E) of the first part of this article, the penalty of imprisonment is not imposed for crimes of small and medium gravity. The term or amount of punishment for a crime committed in cases where a simplified procedure for pre-trial proceedings is provided may not exceed half of the maximum term or amount of the strictest type of punishment provided for in the relevant article of the special part of this code.

Under this law, Part 7 of Article 79 of the criminal code is also amended, which states that "minors who have committed a crime of minor gravity or who have committed a crime of medium gravity for the first time are not subject to imprisonment." Therefore, guided by the requirements of the above-mentioned legislation, a review of the practice of the courts of the East Kazakhstan region in the first quarter of 2014 on the imposition of penalties for crimes of minor and moderate severity was carried out. In the first quarter of 2014, a total of 631 people were convicted, including 77 people, 12.2% of whom were convicted of minor crimes, 16 of whom were sentenced to imprisonment. This is 20.7% against the share of crimes of this category, and the share of total convicts is 2.5 %. 237 people were convicted of crimes of moderate severity, which is 37.5% of the total number of convicted persons. Of these, 55 were sentenced to imprisonment, that is, 14.5% of convicts of this category, and 8.7% of total convicts. The total number of convicted persons during this period is 631, of which 255 were sentenced to imprisonment, that is, 40.4%. From this we can see that for crimes of less serious and moderate severity, 11.2% of the sentence of imprisonment is applied. In the first quarter of 2013, 739 people were convicted, of which 57 were sentenced to less serious crimes (7.7%), and 7 people were sentenced to imprisonment (12.2%). This is 0.9% of the total number of convicts. In addition, 318 people were convicted of crimes of moderate severity, of which 75 were sentenced to imprisonment (23.5 %). This is 10.1% per share of total convicts. Only 11% of those who committed crimes in these two categories were sentenced to imprisonment. In 2013, the number of convicted persons for the reporting period was 739, of which 302 were sentenced to imprisonment (40.8 %). The share of convicts in these two instances is 11%.During the reporting period, there is a slight change in the total share of sentenced to imprisonment, that is, in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same period of the current year, there is a decrease of 0.4%. In the course of imposing these two categories of non-custodial sentences, the following circumstances were revealed: in the first quarter of 2014, the total number of convicted persons was 631, of which 269 were sentenced to non-custodial sentences.

In particular, there is a fine, involvement in public works, correctional labor, restriction of freedom. This is 42.6 percent of the total. Of these, 47 people (7.4%) were sentenced to imprisonment for minor crimes, and 141 people (22.3%) for moderate crimes. The rate of application of non-custodial sentences to convicts in these two categories is 29.7%. We should also pay attention to the judicial practice of conditional punishment, punishment beyond the lower limits of punishment and postponement of execution of punishment: for 3 months of 2014, 91 convicts were sentenced to conditional punishment, of which 13 belong to the category of less serious crimes, and 29 belong to crimes of moderate severity. A total of 42 people (46.1%) were convicted of crimes of these two categories. During the same period of 2013, 90 people were sentenced to probation, which is 12.1% of the total number of convicted persons. In 2014, we see an increase in the level of conditional punishment by 2.3%. Deferral of serving a sentence , that is, Article 72 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan was applied 1 time in 2014, and 3 times in 2013. In 2013, article 55 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan was applied to 24 people, and in 2013 it was applied to only 10 people. No changes were made to the judicial acts in the appellate instance to the penalties imposed for these crimes. It follows from this that the courts apply criminal law in accordance with the requirements of the law.

At the same time, we note that in the first quarter of 2014, among the convicts, 61 were recognized as recidivism, 35 were recognized as dangerous recidivism, and 28 were recognized as particularly dangerous recidivism. The total number of recidivism of these crimes is 124, and the total share of convicted persons is 19.6%. In the first quarter of last year, 93 crimes were recognized as recidivism, 51 - dangerous recidivism, 24 - especially dangerous recidivism, that is, the total number was 168, and the number of convicted persons was 22.7%.If we analyze the indicators for these two periods, recidivism decreased by 3.1%. However, it can be seen from this that the number of recidivism of crimes has increased. In particular, this indicates that convicted persons are again committing crimes. As for the grounds for applying preventive measures to convicted persons, 92 out of 141 persons convicted of crimes of moderate severity, depending on the degree of public danger, preventive measures were applied, that is, arrested. And only 55 of them were sentenced to imprisonment, that is, the proposal to arrest the remaining 37 people was unreasonably satisfied by the court. Of the convicts of this category, 214 committed a crime under the influence of alcohol, that is, 33.9%. However, the report does not indicate how many people were prescribed involuntary treatment for alcoholism. In such cases, the courts need law enforcement agencies to carry out measures aimed at eliminating the circumstances that served as the reason and basis for the commission of a crime, strengthening crime prevention measures. And if necessary, in accordance with the requirements of the law, it is necessary to issue separate resolutions. This issue is one of the previous conditions of Criminal Law – Crime Prevention. The results of the analysis showed that the courts, in the process of imposing a punishment on a person who has committed crimes of less serious and moderate severity, in compliance with the requirements of criminal and Criminal Procedure legislation, correctly prescribed other alternative punishments along with imprisonment.

It also allows convicts to be corrected and re-educated without imposing a sentence of imprisonment. From the above indicators, the application of prison sentences to convicts in the categories of crimes of less severe, moderate severity has changed only significantly, that is, in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the first quarter of this year, it decreased by 0.4%. This contributes to the achievement of good indicators in the framework of the humanization of crime. At the same time, this year the total number of convicted persons decreased by 108 people, the number of minors-by 6, the number of persons who committed crimes of moderate severity-by 81. The Appellate Judicial Board for criminal cases of the East Kazakhstan regional court changed 6 sentences of the court of First Instance (for 3 months of 2014) in cases of less serious and moderate severity.

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