This article offers a criminological analysis of murders for hire, from the moment of their regulation in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation until 2019. Since the procedure of statistical registration of these crimes changed several times during this period, comparable indicators were presented based on these changes. The base period is from 2003 to 2019. In the course of criminological analysis, the authors used official statistical data and calculated the dynamics of absolute and relative indicators (growth rates, specific weight, intensity coefficient) of crimes of the studied type. As a result, the authors came to the following conclusions. In the Russian Federation, murder for hire is not a common crime: its share in the structure of murders over the past decade has not exceeded 0.15 %, although murders account for no more than 0.5 % in the overall structure of crime. The analysis of the dynamics of this crime revealed not only a steady downward trend in its quantitative indicators, but also a faster rate of decline in comparison with the dynamics of murders in general (the absolute number of criminal cases of murder for hire decreased 6 times during the examined period, while the absolute murder rate decreased only 4 times, and the rate of decline for the basic indicator of murder for hire was higher by 8.7 %). The coefficient of intensity of murders of this type during the examined period also decreased 6.5 times. The rate of decline in the indicators of assassinations committed by organized criminal groups and criminal communities was 2 times higher than the rate shown by the entire set of murders of this type. At the same time, the share of murders for hire committed with the use of firearms, explosive devices, and explosives has not actually changed, despite a six-fold decrease in absolute indicators. However, the share of such crimes is not dominant in the structure of homicides for hire. In addition, murder for hire is a crime with a higher degree of latency than manslaughter. At the same time, a complicated system of registering murders for hire under various indicators makes it possible to disguise the real situation with this crime.

Changes made to Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation at the end of 2019 in order to eliminate gaps in legislation, in fact, created even more conflicts in the theory and practice of applying criminal and administrative law. The legislator has not fully calculated the risks of the new edition of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The elimination of these risks requires more changes to the federal legislation, the adoption of new by-laws. Within the framework of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation the legislator created a contradiction regarding the qualification of illegal circulation of unique amber formations. Russian legislation does not contain a legal definition of semi-precious stones, clarification of their difference from precious stones. The concept of precious stones does not prove to be successful, since it contains a list-based reference of a particular stone to the category of precious stones, which does not always really reflect the economic value of a particular mineral. The list of semi-precious stones at the level of the Government of Russia has yet to be approved. Taking into account the administrative prejudice as one of the conditions for criminal prosecution for illegal trafficking in semiprecious stones, it should be the same with the list of semi-precious stones established to bring an individual to administrative responsibility for similar offenses. The legislator did not pay attention to the issues of delimiting jewelry and household products and scrap of such products from the subject of crimes under Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. An even greater problem is the inconsistency between the norms of administrative and criminal legislation on liability for illegal trafficking in semi-precious stones.

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