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The article deals with one of the most controversial phenomena in criminal law – administrative prejudice. The author conducts a deep systematic and comparative legal analysis of this concept, gives its legal characteristic, explores its theoretical foundations, historical origins and evolution, including the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Purpose: based on the study of the legal nature, social conditionality of administrative prejudice, to identify problems of compliance of its application with the goals and objectives of modern criminal policy in Russia. Methods: the research is based on a dialectical approach to the study of social processes and phenomena. It uses methods traditional for the sciences of criminal law and criminology, such as analysis and synthesis; comparative legal; retrospective; formal legal; logical; comparative. The following private scientific methods are also used: a legal-dogmatic method and interpretation of legal norms. Results: the article reveals doctrinal origins of the administrative prejudice concept, better called as the theory of punitive progression, based on the repetition of homogeneous actions with an increasing level of illegality and progressive repression. In this regard, the works of C. Lombroso, E. Ferry, and R. Garofalo are studied. The article examines in detail the modern scientific controversy on the constitutional and doctrinal validity of the inclusion of norms with administrative prejudice in the criminal law. By conducting a comparative legal analysis of the meaning of the term “administrative prejudice” in other branches of law, in particular civil and criminal proceedings, the author establishes that the original (genuine) essence of this concept is expressed in the legal force (prejudice) of a court decision or other jurisdictional body, eliminating the need for its revision in the future. It has nothing to do with the concept of the so-called administrative prejudice in criminal law. It is noted that the criminal law terminology, reflecting the concepts used in other branches of law, is often filled with its own, narrowly sectoral meaning, different from the original one. The author considers intersectoral divergence and doctrinal inconsistency of this legal phenomenon and presents his point of view on possible negative consequences of the existence of norms with administrative prejudice in criminal law. He studies connection with and distinction between administrative prejudice and blank and predicate crimes, as well as recidivism of crimes, criminal and executive prejudice. In this regard, a new term “sectoral prejudice” is proposed. Conclusion: a number of conclusions are formulated about the meaning and prospects for the application of administrative prejudice in criminal law, theoretical and practical arguments for its exclusion from the criminal law.
