Description:

In contemporary criminological science, a unified and consistent theoretical approach to criminal omission has yet to be established. This is primarily due to the fact that the question of whether criminal omission that is, the failure to fulfill a legal duty constitutes a legal and social reality remains a subject of academic debate. The normative, social, and philosophical aspects of this category are interpreted differently across various legal schools and criminological approaches. Scholars and authors hold divergent views regarding the essence of this concept. Some authors emphasize that criminal omission, understood as the non-performance of a specific legal obligation, lacks material expression in objective reality and therefore hesitate to recognize it as an independent form of conduct in the legal sense. According to their perspective, the foundation of legal wrongdoing lies solely in active conduct namely, a volitional act that can be observed in the external world. Passivity, in contrast, is not a form of conduct in the material sense, but merely the absence of such conduct. This viewpoint is largely rooted in formalist and positivist theories of law. Nevertheless, according to the prevailing position in criminology, denying the existence of passive conduct i.e., the failure to fulfill a legal obligation as a valid legal category is scientifically unfounded. In some instances, the consequences of omission may pose a greater threat to public safety than those resulting from active conduct, thereby providing sufficient grounds for the imposition of legal liability. Such an approach allows for a broader interpretation of criminal behavior, particularly within the frameworks of social functionalism and normative legal theory.In this regard, omission as it reflects the breach of a certain duty to act both legally and socially has evolved into an independent object of criminal law and criminological analysis. On this basis, the present article will examine the criminological characteristics of criminal omission from multiple perspectives.