THE PROBLEM OF COMPLEXITY IN CRIMINOLOGY: ANALYSIS OF THE PAST, ASSESSMENT OF THE PRESENT AND A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE

Abstract

This article, based on the results of theoretical and empirical research, 
attempts to evaluate the breadth and depth of understanding the issue of 
complexity and the comprehensive approach in the field of criminology. 
Arguments are presented regarding the appropriateness of studying the state of 
scientific development of the problem of complexity. The characteristics of an 
intersystem, sectoral-subject-chronological approach to understanding the 
announced issues are revealed. The author offers a general understanding of 
complexity and the comprehensive approach. Key scholars and their scientific 
works, which directly or mostly indirectly relate to the problem of complexity, are 
listed. The article outlines the four main stages in the formation and development 
of philosophical and criminological knowledge about complexity. Attention is 
drawn to the significance of general scientific systems methodology for a deeper 
understanding of the heuristic potential of the comprehensive approach in 
general and complexity in particular.  
The study of theoretical and methodological problems of complexity can be 
excluded from the implementation of the systematic scientific approach, as well as 
the consideration of this crisis problem through the prism of a special systemic 
criminological object (formation). The development of scientific knowledge about 
complexity and systematicity has gone through decades of conventional historical 
eras: the initial (Antique), middle (modern era), main (from the middle of the 
20th century to the present) and modern stages. 
Currently, the increase in knowledge about the problem of complexity in 
criminology can be productive provided that the phenomenon of crime is 
recognized as a complex social system, which, according to the dialectical law of 
unity and struggle of opposites, is opposed by another, criminological, system. It 
consists of several interconnected complexes that closely interact with each other 
and are aimed at achieving a single systemic goal - the protection of human and 
civil rights and freedoms, limiting the spread of criminal offenses and reducing 
their negative social consequences. 
The prospects for further research into the specified scientific matter have 
been outlined. Promising directions for increasing scientific knowledge in this 
area are the justification of the application of complexity at all levels of the 
criminological system of Ukraine in order to achieve the effectiveness of criminological doctrine, criminological legislation, criminological policy, 
criminology as an academic discipline, criminological worldview, and 
criminological activity.