FORMATION OF LAW CONSCIOUSNESS AND FORMS OF ITS DEFORMATIVE EXPRESSION

ანოტაცია

Interpersonal relations are regulated by legal norms, which pro- actively and reactively control what a citizen should and should not do. Knowledge of the law and its norms contributes to the formation of law awareness and consciousness, expressed in human social attitudes towards order and law. In response to violating the rule of law, society applies reactive social control, which takes the form of punishment and whose purpose is to restore justice, prevent new crimes, and resocialize the offender. There is a great abundance of norms and various punishments in society; however, despite this, crime has always been and most likely will continue to be an integral part of society, significantly reducing people's well-being. In the modern world, the formation of teenagers' law consciousness as their criminal behavior regulator deserves special attention. Law consciousness means understanding the existing norms and forming the necessary practical skills for implementation. Without it, societys future welfare is put into doubt, and the risk of committing a crime increases significantly. The research was interested in the factors contributing to law consciousness formation and/or its de- formative expressions. Identifying factors influencing the formation or non-formation of law consciousness allowed us to make recommendations for its formation, thereby contributing to crime prevention and increasing civil well-being.

Keywords: social control, law consciousness, crime

Introduction

A person has to make different decisions every day, gets into a strange situation, and has little time to solve the problem, which adds an emotional tone to this process. At this time, some take rational steps while others act impulsively. The behavior of both of them is based on personal traits, which include the uniqueness of their perceptions of the situation and the behavioral manifestations of every person. Despite the uniqueness of a person and the diversity of the environment responsible for its formation, the amount of response to a foreign, stressful environment significantly depends on the quality and experience of general and legal education, which is a kind of resource for solving the problem. [1]

Society creates norms to promote, control, and protect human interests. From the perspective of the law's protective role, the law is an effective tool for ensuring the protection of potential victims. [2] Legal norms are an important achievement of society's civilization. The main goal of state governance is for its people to understand the law, the rule of law, and its importance. [3]

The culture of law in the state determines the quality of society's life and represents the level of development achieved by legal actions, realities, and opportunities. The feeling of freedom, the guarantee of security, and the legal responsibility in society. law consciousness is a part of legal culture; however, legal culture is more general; it reflects the prevailing reality in society. law consciousness is a dynamic process; it involves the internalization of the meaning of the prevailing laws and includes the psychological understanding of the content of the law. As for the legal culture, it is more conservative, consists only of the facts of public law enforcement, and does not involve individual cognitions, which form the public's understanding of this law.[4]

The law consciousness of children and adolescents is a challenge for modern society because the formation of a culture of justice, a sense of public safety, and the level of public prosperity and success depend on it.[5] law consciousness is a regulator of human behavior and a prerequisite for understanding rights and their enforcement. Deformation of law consciousness, a crime puts the safety of society at risk, and to deal with it, there are three levels of crime prevention in society.[6]

In the modern world, against the backdrop of political or social changes, there is a great difference in values between the youth and the older generations. This is especially noticeable in Post-Soviet countries. Taking care of the next generation is the main task for the development of society because their socialization and their values are vulnerable to the current processes in the society. In the process of taking care of the future generation, the state and society should ensure its correct socialization, legal upbringing, formation of legal awareness and law consciousness. Which can only be achieved by planning and implementing a successful educational policy.[7]

The interest of the research is the formation of legal consciousness and the identification of factors influencing its lack. In order to satisfy the interest, a theoretical discussion of the circumstances necessary for social control, its manifestation, and functioning, and an analysis of the existing literature on the topic of the circumstances affecting the formation of legal consciousness were planned. As a result, the probable causes of the deforming manifestations of law consciousness were determined, and recommendations were developed for the formation of law consciousness. 

Social Control

Lambert and his colleagues (Lambert et al., 2011) [8]  point out that society uses various forms of control to regulate the observance of social norms. There are formal and informal norms, the violation of which provides for various punishments. Control can be proactive or reactive: proactive control is when the implementation or non-implementation of behavior is controlled, and reactive control is when a response is made to already implemented behavior. It can be both a negative and a positive sanction. Society goes both ways, actively monitoring its members to ensure that the norm is not violated (proactive control), admonishing those who do not or no longer violate the norm, and punishing those who do (positive and negative manifestations of reactive control). Encouragement, like punishment, can be both formal and informal. e.g., reward and penalty are forms of formal control, and good reputation in society, thanks, smiles, and stigmatization are forms of disclosure of informal control.

Usually, the forms of social control used by the state are mostly reactive, including: legal feedback on violations; legal supervision; public opinion management; and employment restrictions. [9]  

For the proactive form of social control, is mostly responsible the society, in which the child grows up, goes through the process of socialization and acquires the forms of right and wrong behaviors. It is necessary for a person to believe in the necessity of these norms and to internalize them, which implies the conformity of attitude formation and behavior. In addition to the forms of pro- and reactive control implemented by the state, the behavior of public figures is important. Their vision is very important, which create public opinion and, in turn, pro- and reactively control trends in society.[10]

Public movements, Universities and educational institutions pro - and reactively shape social opinion and behavior. In this case, the university, "in como parentis," like parents, becomes responsible for the socialization of the child.[11] Society needs a norm for formal and informal control. By which the society imposes an obligation or duty on the member to fulfill them. To be effective, the norm should be:

• Timely - its violation must be responded to in a timely manner;[12]


• An adequate - response to its violation should be related to the type of violation;[13]


• And unmistakable, inevitable - response to its violation must be guaranteed.[14]

All this helps society members to develop law consciousness, to establish positive relations between society members, and by promoting the full-fledged development of the next generation, it appears as a significant determinant of society's well-being.[15] [16]

The rule of law as a guarantor of security

In order to ensure social control, people criminalized undesirable actions, created norms, and, to ensure compliance with those norms, established punishments, which at different times had different theoretical explanations and objectives. The Criminal Code sets out restrictions on certain behaviors, the violation of which is considered a crime and leads to punishment or the imposition of other criminal legal measures.[17] Therefore, criminal law is a body of law that prescribes certain forms of conduct, criminalizes undesirable actions (so as not to harm public safety and welfare), and prescribes appropriate forms of punishment in response to prohibited conduct.[18]

The use of punishment is justified for two reasons. The first is that criminal law focuses on crime prevention, which it does by imposing punishment in response to crime in order to prevent future unwanted behavior or harm. The second explanation connects the punishment of an unfinished, fruitless crime (an attempted crime) with moral guilt and believes that since the person wanted to carry out the prohibited behavior, regardless of the unsuccessful result, he still deserves to be punished.[19]

Punishment is an inseparable institution of every social system; however, it is used by society on different grounds and in different ways. The correct understanding of the essence of punishment is related to the legitimation of criminal law and implies the imposition of certain restrictions by the state, their implementation, and their justification.  [20]

The theoretical explanation of punishment and the focus of the individual and society in the past and future determines the goals of punishment and the orientation towards which the ratio of punishment is justified.  The goal of restorative justice in punishment, like the absolute theory, only involves a reaction to past actions and emphasizes the supremacy of law and social norms and the need to uphold them. Crime prevention sees punishment in a relatively broad perspective and aims to prevent new crimes, which shifts from focusing on the past to the future protection of society and thus becomes more humane and more acceptable to the society. Finally, the resocialization/rehabilitatiion goal of sentencing summarizes restorative and preventive justice. Because it implies the return of a non-resocialized (criminal) person to society as a rehabilitated or resocialized member, thereby ensuring the observance of the law, the formation of law consciousness, the prevention of new crimes, and, as a result, the protection of society. [21]

law consciousness and forms of its deformative expresssion

law consciousness  is a form of social awareness and represents individuals' subjective perception of the law, their emotions, and their attitude towards the content of the law. Public attitudes shape individual law consciousness just as individual law consciousness determines the understanding and observance of public law.[22]

According to Kravchenko (Kravchenko, 2021), law consciousness  is not only understanding the content of the law and having legal values but also understanding the meaning of this law, which is the axis of legal awareness. Although individual law consciousness does not directly shape the public's understanding of law, it significantly regulates the psychological factors of legal relations and human behavior. It is a necessary prerequisite for human involvement in social and legal reality and ensures the formation of social norms, social experiences, and the culture of law. This, in turn, creates a civil society and is a necessary prerequisite for the development of society.[23]

Deformation of law consciousness is a social phenomenon that, contrary to the positive understanding of law, implies a negative and/or nihilistic attitude toward existing norms in society, which often manifests itself in criminal behavior. The deformation of law consciousness and its manifestations are related to a lack of legal knowledge and social responsibility, which are due to a low level of education. It is legal education that is responsible for understanding the importance of norms and forming public discipline and public law culture.[24]

According to Khasanovich (2021) [25], there are several ways for crime prevention: the formation of law consciousness and legal culture, which are carried out by offering and engaging in social activities; the influence of public and civil persons, whose opinions are authoritative and the correct inform of the society, share legal processes and increase legal literacy among teenagers.  

Formation of law consciousness

According to Chua and Engel (Chua and Engel, 2019), three things influence the formation of a teenager's legal consciousness: worldview—their social relations in society, understanding of a person's social role, and the level of involvement in public life; Perceptions are their interpretation of current events in society, about justice, success, goodness, and well-being, and the conclusions they draw, which derive from the spectrum of their worldview and the events in the environment, their interpretation of the information they perceive.[26]

Jurisprudence among teenagers has several functions: regulatory, which determines their behavior; teleological, which determines the goals of human behavior; transactional, which forms motives; and practeological, which is the expression of existing attitudes in relation to the law. Among them, the teleological function plays a special role, during which the target behaviors of the adolescent are identified. It, in turn, is divided into cognitive and behavioral functions and consists of logical, emotional, and behavioral behaviors. [27]

Kravchenko (Kravchenko, 2021) talks about two ways of forming law consciousness: general and separate. In a general sense, the socialization of law and the formation of law consciousness serve common goals, and a separate way of forming law consciousness proceeds independently of the general socialization process; however, it serves the general goals of general socialization (for example, when a child learns that lying is bad and this helps him not to become a liar). [28]

According to Tereschenko and his colleagues (Tereschenko et al., 2020) the more law-aware a citizen is, the more he strives to get an education. They consider the level of education as a prerequisite for the formation of law consciousness and also, education is as an important determining factor of law consciousness. Therefore, the authors conclude State and public figures should put more emphasis on legal education.[29]

In order to form a sense of law in a society, it is necessary to establish the supremacy of the law through cooperation between the state and the society, the correct understanding of the law, and the conclusion of the social contract. In order for the law to be supreme and for the members of society to believe in the necessity of its protection, several factors of the existence of the norm must be guaranteed, namely: the law must be clear so that its social meaning can be easily perceived; the law must be applicable and focused on human protection; protection of the law must be ensured; and retaliatory punishment for its violation must be guaranteed. Compliance with the law should not cause discomfort but rather a feeling of security, and finally, a necessary prerequisite for the formation of law consciousness is the raising of legal awareness at all levels of education, especially in the adolescent age group.[30]

Summary

Based on the reviewed literature, social control is seen as a prerequisite for societal well-being. Social control can be pro-active, which involves identifying injustices to ensure the safety of its members and teaching the next generation, or reactive, when punishment is applied in response to an established injustice. During proactive control, at the stage of establishing a norm in society, in order to ensure the protection of this norm, it is necessary that the norm be effective, necessary, and applicable, and that the importance of its protection is understood. At the stage of reactive social control, the punishment imposed on injustice must be unmistakable, timely, and adequate.

In the implementation of proactive social control, it is common for adults to try to implement imposed injustice. One of the reasons for this is low education, the ineffectiveness of the norm, and, in general, a lack of legal awareness. At this time, it is the responsibility of the state and society to take care of the teenager, to promote his proper socialization, and to promote the formation of the legal system that has not yet been formed. Even if proactive control and support failed to justify legal injustice and it was carried out, the state applies a form of reactive control and imposes punishment, the goal of which is to restore justice, prevent crime, and resocialize the offender. This can be achieved through the formation of his law consciousness.

Conclusion/Recommendation

By analyzing the mentioned theoretical material, we research wanted to identify the factors affecting the lack of law consciousness. Based on the reviewed literature, research concludes that this factors are:

• when the need to observe the norm is not clear;


• when the norm is ineffective and/or unusable;


• When the punishment imposed for breaking the norm is not timely, accurate and adequate;


• When there are no civil movements, authoritative public and private individuals, and educational institutions in the society, who emphasize the need to protect the law in their activities.

Based on the analysis of the literature, the results of the study allow for the following recommendations:

• educational priorities of law should be determined at the state and public level (raising legal awareness and popularizing law);


• to emphasize the importance of its protection during the development of the norm;


• The punishment imposed in response to the violation of the norm must be unmistakable, timely and adequate.

Bibliography

Georgian language literature

1. Dvalidze I. (2013), General part of criminal law, punishment and other criminal consequences of crime, Meridian, Tbilisi (In Georgian)


2. Lekveishvili M., Todua N., Mamulashvili G., (2011), Private Part of Criminal Law, Meridian, Tbilisi (In Georgian)

Foreign language literature

3. Cable Sh., (2019) Social Movements and Social Control, The Handbook of Social Control, 1^st By Deflem M., John Wiley & Sons. Ltd;


4. Chua L., J., Engel D., M., (2019), Legal Consciousness Reconsidered, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 15;


5. Dehnad V., (2017), A Proactive Model to Control Reactive Behaviors, World Journal of Education, 7 (4);


6. Hakim M., H., (2016), Legal Protection Versus Legal Consciousness (The Changing Perspective in Law and Society Research, Al-Bankari, HLM, 15(1);


7. Hallevy G.( 2013) The Right to Be Punished, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg , DOI: 1007/978-3-642-32388-1


8. Keiler J., Panzavolta M., Roef D., (2014 ) Hage J., Akkermans B., (eds.) Introduction To Law, Springer International Publishing Seitzerland


9. Khasanovich A., SH. (2021), The Role of Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture in Official Prevention, Web of Scienrist: International Scientific research Journal, 2 (5);


10. Kolber A., J., (2013), Against Proportional Punishment, Vanderbilt Law Review, 66 (4)


11. Kravchenko O., V., (2021), Legal Consciousness and Forms of its Deformation, Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24 (1);


12. Lambert E., Karuppannan J., Jiang Sh., Pasupuleti S., Bhirarasetty J., (2011), Correlates of Formal and Informal Social Control on Crime Prevention: An Exploratory Study among University Students, Andhra Pradesh, India, Asian Journal of Criminology, 7 (3), 1007/s11417-011-9108-9;


13. Mischenko E., V., Kriskovets T., N., Lopanova A., P., Mushanova I., V., Inalkaeva K., S., Shulga T., I., Ivanova A., V., (2021), Student Youth Legal Consciousness: Formation Problems and Prospects, Current context of education and psychology in Europe and Asia,9(3), http://dx.doi.org/10.20511/pyr2021.v9nSPE3.1135


14. Pevtsova E., (2013), The functions of legal awareness of children and young people, Acta Universitatis George Bacovia. Juridica, 2 (2);


15. Tereshchenko E., A., Kovalev V., V., Trofimo M., S., Zasseev D., A., (2020), Legal Consciousness as a Facor Promoting The Achievement of Educational Objectives and the Realization of The Right to Education by Individuals and Collectives, Rev. Tempos Espaços Educ., 13(32), http://dx.doi.org/10.20952/revtee.v13i32.14690 ;


16. Yi L., Li L., (2022), Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol.22, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8275938

Web Source

17. Banks E., (2018), The Purpose of Punishment, Criminal Justice Ethics, Sage Publications, com, https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5144_Banks_II_Proof_Chapter_5.pdf, (Last seen 25.02, 2023);


18. Shevchenko A., Y., Kudin S., V., Loshchykhin O., M., Fatkhudinov V., H., (2021), The Principle of Inevitability and the Institution of Exeption From Legal Liability: Aspects of the Relationship; https://www.periodicojs.com.br/index.php/gei/article/download/130/89/419,(Last seen : 29.03.2022)

Footnotes

[1] Dehnad V., (2017), A Proactive Model to Control Reactive Behaviors, World Journal of Education, 7 (4), p.24

[2] Hakim M., H., (2016), Legal Protection Versus Legal Consciousness (The Changing Perspective in Law and Society Research, Al-Bankari, HLM, 15(1), p.57

[3] Yi L., Li L., (2022), Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol.22, p. 1, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8275938

[4] Kravchenko O., V., (2021), Legal Consciousness and Forms of its Deformation, Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24 (1), p. 8-9

[5] Pevtsova E., (2013),The functions of legal awareness of children and young people, Acta Universitatis George Bacovia. Juridica , 2 (2), p.1

[6] Kravchenko O., V., (2021), Legal Consciousness and Forms of its Deformation, Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24 (1), p. 2

[7] Mischenko E., V., Kriskovets T., N., Lopanova A., P., Mushanova I., V., Inalkaeva K., S., Shulga T., I., Ivanova A., V., (2021), Student Youth Legal Consciousness: Formation Problems and Prospects, Current context of education and psychology in Europe and Asia,9(3), p. 7, http://dx.doi.org/10.20511/pyr2021.v9nSPE3.1135

[8] Lambert E., Karuppannan J., Jiang Sh., Pasupuleti S., Bhirarasetty J., (2011), Correlates of Formal and Informal Social Control on Crime Prevention: An Exploratory Study among University Students, Andhra Pradesh, India, Asian Journal of Criminology, 7 (3), p.240, 10.1007/s11417-011-9108-9

[9] Cable Sh., (2019) Social Movements and Social Control, The Handbook of Social Control, 1^st ed. By Deflem M., John Wiley & Sons. Ltd, p.122-124

[10] Cable Sh., (2019) Social Movements and Social Control, The Handbook of Social Control, 1^st ed. By Deflem M., John Wiley & Sons. Ltd,p.129

[11] There, p. 131

[12] Banks E., (2018), The Purpose of Punishment, Criminal Justice Ethics, Sage Publications, Sagepub.com, https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/5144_Banks_II_Proof_Chapter_5.pdf, (Last seen 25.02. 2023)

[13] Kolber A., J., (2013), Against Proportional Punishment, Vanderbilt Law Review, 66 (4), p.1142

[14] Shevchenko A., Y., Kudin S., V., Loshchykhin O., M., Fatkhudinov V., H., (2021),  The Principle of Inevitability and the Institution of Exeption From Legal Liability: Aspects of the Relationship,  file:///C:/Users/595-424-424%20Temo/Downloads/filipe,+GEI+05-+February+2021%20(1).pdf ,(Last seen 21.11.2022

[15] Yi L., Li L., (2022), Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol.22, p. 10, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8275938

[16] Mischenko E., V., Kriskovets T., N., Lopanova A., P., Mushanova I., V., Inalkaeva K., S., Shulga T., I., Ivanova A., V., (2021), Student Youth Legal Consciousness: Formation Problems and Prospects, Current context of education and psychology in Europe and Asia,9(3), p. 1-2, http://dx.doi.org/10.20511/pyr2021.v9nSPE3.1135

[17] Lekveishvili M., Todua N., Mamulashvili G., (2011), Private Part of Sikh Law, Meridian, Tbilisi, p .3

[18] Keiler J., Panzavolta M., Roef D., (2014 ) Hage J., Akkermans B., (eds.) Introduction To Law, Springer International Publishing Seitzerland, p.121-122, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06910-4 

[19] There, p.142

[20] Dvalidze I. (2013), General part of criminal law, punishment and other criminal consequences of crime, Meridian, Tbilisi

[21] Hallevy G.( 2013)  The Right to Be Punished, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg , p.37, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-32388-1

[22] Yi L., Li L., (2022), Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol.22,p. 1, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8275938

[23] Kravchenko O., V., (2021), Legal Consciousness and Forms of its Deformation, Jurnal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24 , p.10-12

[24] There,  p.8-9

[25] Khasanovich A., SH. (2021), The Role of Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture in Official Prevention, Web of Scienrist: International Scientific research Journal, 2 (5), p. 575-576

[26] Chua L., J., Engel D., M., (2019), Legal Consciousness Reconsidered, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 15, p.3

[27] Pevtsova E., (2013), The functions of legal awareness of children and young people, Acta Universitatis George Bacovia. Juridica, 2 (2), p.4

[28] Kravchenko O., V., (2021), Legal Consciousness and Forms of its Deformation, Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 24 (1), p. 1

[29] Tereshchenko E., A., Kovalev V., V., Trofimo M., S., Zasseev D., A., (2020), Legal Consciousness as a Factor Promoting The Achievement of Educational Objectives and the Realization of The Right to Education by Individuals and Collectives, Rev. Tempos Espaços Educ., 13(32) p .15-16, http://dx.doi.org/10.20952/revtee.v13i32.14690

[30] Yi L., Li L., (2022), Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol.22, p. 4-5, https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8275938