RUDN Journal of Law (Dec 2023)
COVID-19 pandemic: legal, criminological, health and social aspects
Abstract
This study considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic - announced by the WHO in March 2020 - on law enforcement, crime, and mental health of population, including vulnerable groups (children and adolescents, prisoners, health care workers). The authors use an interdisciplinary research approach, including comparative legal, historical, and formal-legal methods. Anti-epidemic measures aimed at curbing the global spread of the virus and interrupting its transmission routes are described on examples from several countries. The legal basis for such measures consists mainly of legal acts of executive authorities and decisions of local authorities, taken in accordance with national laws in the field of prevention and control of infectious diseases and response to emergencies. The authors discuss in detail the legal instruments used in countering the pandemic in the Russian Federation, including changes and amendments to the legislation on administrative offences and criminal law. The global crisis caused by the pandemic offers examples of effective actions taken by states, but also shows weaknesses in the organization of health care, including functioning of health care workers “on the front line” of fight against the pandemic. The international system for responding to dangerous infections has also underperformed, prompting discussions on the need for an international legal instrument to combat pandemics. Empirical studies have found that the pandemic, combined with restrictive measures, led to increased levels of stress, anxiety and depression, alcohol and other psychoactive substances use among the population, gave rise to new types of illigal behavior and negative dynamics in a number of already known criminal offenses. Therefore, criminologists need to pay attention to changes in the structure and dynamics of crime, conditions that contribute to them, as well as new factors of victimhood.
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