“Don’t touch your grandmother”: how much will increase the cost of criminal damage

Alas, today in Russia for an economic crime can be sentenced to a prison term longer than for murder and rape. Human rights defenders (among whom the author of this article, as a member of the HRC) have repeatedly drawn attention to this discrepancy, which society considers unfair: a person’s life seems to be valued less than his property. It was also noted that for petty thefts that do not pose any public danger, they receive a criminal record today and can even go to prison. And so we seem to have been heard.

The size of petty theft is proposed to increase from 2500 to 5000 rubles, significant damage - from 5000 to 10000 rubles. The threshold of major theft is from 250 thousand to 1 million, and especially large – from 1 million to 6 million.

How these and other possible innovations will affect the lives of Russians – in the material of the columnist “MK”, a member of the HRC, who took part in the round table of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.

The topic of “sizes” was discussed at a meeting of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building of the Federation Council under the leadership of Deputy Chairman of the Committee Nikolai Vladimirov on Tuesday, November 10. But it was, as they say, not just ripe, but overripe.

The amount of damage is known to affect the qualification of the wrongful act. But many thresholds for different articles of the Criminal Code were established more than 20 years ago, and prices have increased during this time, and life has changed. As a result, over time, there was a hidden tightening of criminal liability for the same act. It's not fair, to say the least. At most, it is not beneficial for the state and society.

Recall that the amount of petty theft is now 2500 rubles.

“We have actions that do not have a great public danger, become criminally punishable,” says the Director of the Department of Criminal and Administrative Legislation of the Ministry of Justice Maria Jouse-Ivanina. - Simple example. In 2025, one citizen cut down two spruces and two aspens. This caused damage in the amount of 6 thousand rubles. He was brought to criminal responsibility. The sentence was passed, which then stood in the appeal, cassation instance. Only the Supreme Court pointed out that the act did not correspond to the signs of a crime due to its insignificant public danger.

Maria gave another example, with her grandmother, who left the store without paying for the purchase of 3,642 rubles.

She offered to pay immediately, but for some reason in the end against her opened a criminal case. And, again, only the Supreme Court ruled that the act did not meet the requirement of public danger. And, accordingly, stopped the criminal case for lack of corpus delicti.

The representative of the Ministry of Justice stressed that it is obvious that the damage from such crimes does not correlate with the costs of investigation, trial. And its consequences for offenders do not correlate with public danger.

In 2024, a bill was adopted, which provided for the correction of threshold values only for a number of crimes in the economic sphere, for example, to fraud in the field of business activities. We have increased the minimum threshold of damage from 10 thousand to 250 thousand rubles. As a result, 28% of crimes related to fraud in this area were transferred to the category of administrative offenses. We have not seen any increase in crime in this regard. The fears proved unwarranted. But this bill concerns, again, only a number of crimes. No revision of other rules was envisaged.

The Interior Ministry has prepared a bill that provides for an increase in the size of petty theft to 5000 rubles. And, accordingly, significant damage caused to a citizen up to 10,000 rubles. We believe that such an initiative does not deserve support.

But talking only about petty theft would be wrong. Jouse-Ivanina cited the example of part 4 of article 159, according to which fraud on an especially large scale starts from 1 million rubles.

It is now punished more severely than intentional infliction of grave harm to health. That is, it turns out that a person can lose sight, hearing, speech, and the guilty person will not be so severely punished than the one who committed fraud on an especially large scale.

The author of these lines in his report gave an illustration of the words of the representative of the Ministry of Justice. Not so long ago, one of the district courts of Moscow appointed 4 years in prison lawyer Olga Goltsova (by the way, she is a single mother, raising a disabled child, suffered a severe oncological operation) referring to the fact that the damage in her case is more than 1 million, and this is especially large. At the same time, the victim asked not to sentence her to real imprisonment.

To eliminate the disproportionateness, the Ministry of Justice proposed to adjust the amount of damage under the article "Fraud on a large scale" (they have not changed since 2003) from 250 thousand rubles to 1.5 million large size and from 1 million rubles to 6 million rubles - an especially large size.

Vice-President of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers Nver Gasparyan noted that this increase may not be enough. Since 2003, prices have increased by 8.5 times, the average salary in the country - from 5500 rubles to about 100 thousand rubles. The representative of the lawyer community suggested to focus on the USSR. Especially large was considered 10 thousand rubles, while the average salary was 100 rubles.

In general, the Ministry of Justice selected articles of the Criminal Code in which a large size has not been revised for more than 10 years. There were 49.

As for the opponents of the idea, – continues Jouse-Ivanina, – here, of course, the problem of prevention and suppression of crime is indicated, and, in addition, there is a fear that there will be an increase in crime. Of course, we cannot ignore these factors, but we must also focus on this position. Inflation itself, of course, is not the basis for an automatic increase in the dimensions of crimes.

There were opponents at the round table. They said, among other things, that it is necessary to lower the thresholds, so that it was possible to punish doctors and teachers who take “petty thanks”, to suppress the activities of negligent traffic police officers who “lure money from drivers”. Thank goodness that was in the minority. As the idea “to tie the amount of damage to the welfare of the victim or the accused (say, for someone and 10 thousand big money, and someone 100 million “trifles”).

The representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office Irina Pozdnyakova cited statistics on corruption crimes. In 2018, there were 30 thousand such atrocities, in 2025 – 43 thousand. For nine months of this year, there is already an increase of 2.5%. At the same time, 62% of all cases are bribes, of which 32% are on a large and especially large scale. And here is the phenomenon observed by prosecutors: if in 2017 (when the crime of “petty bribery” was introduced), small bribes amounted to 45%, then in 2026 – only 10. She also indicated the average size of small bribes in 2025 - 3600 rubles in 2026 - 4300 rubles.

The author of these lines gave examples from world practice proving that the effect is not the severity of punishment for economic crimes, but the inevitability. A system that guarantees high disclosure and real accountability works better than a system with extremely harsh but rarely enforced penalties. China has the death penalty for corruption, but has corruption gone down? Conversely, in Norway and Switzerland, corrupt officials are sentenced to an average of 3-5 years in prison, but there is less bribery than in other countries.

In Russia, officials receive long sentences for these crimes (an average of 9-12 years). Which is more than murder. At the same time, the vast majority of them are people with higher education, having families, often endowed with talents that could be in demand. And by the way, there is no relapse among them. As Elina Sidorenko, a member of the HRC, noted: “Many of the current corrupt officials were formed in an era of instability, when the main skill was the ability to survive, not serve. They were not originally “villains” – they adapted to an environment where loyalty, personal connections, and informal arrangements were valued above professionalism and honesty. Corruption is not an individual defect, but a reaction to environmental stimuli. Put the same person on an environment with zero tolerance for bribery, transparent procedures and tight controls - and they're more likely to be an honest official.

And here the main conclusion arises: instead of weeding out people, we need to change the environment, create one where honesty is profitable, and corruption is impossible even for the most sophisticated adapter.

It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Justice proposes to increase the amount of fines taking into account inflation. The representative of the department clarified that this is not about increasing responsibility.

On the contrary, by expanding the practice of applying a fine, we want to contribute to the less severe punishment. Because the courts, unable to impose an adequate fine, since it is limited by the bar, are forced to choose a different punishment, more severe, explains Jouse-Ivanina.

Raising the thresholds of damage will in any case lead to lower people behind bars. In an environment where you need to shout about saving people, this is extremely necessary. In addition, it will be just fair and reasonable. And a huge investigative and court apparatus will not be dealing with a case against a grandmother who forgot to pay for groceries.