Transformation of the Institution of Involvement in a Crime and Civil-Law Means of Compensation for Damages

<jats:p>Purpose. The institute of involvement in a crime entered the studies of criminal law long ago and has become quite firmly established. From the perspective of a textbook understanding, it is an obligatory criminal act that has a connection to another crime but does not reach the degree of complicity in it due to a temporal gap, a defect in the subjective elements, the absence of a direct causal link, or other reasons. Discussions are held typically regarding the extent to which its main, classical forms — harboring and failure to report — should be criminalized from the standpoint of humanistic ideas and moral preferences. Meanwhile, modern trends of increasing complexity of socio-economic relations require some corresponding adjustments in law as a superstructure for adequate protection against criminal encroachments, the subjects of which are unwilling to voluntarily submit to moral regulators and embrace humanistic ideas actively using scientific and technological progress. The article attempts to answer the following question through usage of historical and comparative legal methods: whether involvement in a crime should continue to be limited by existing frameworks, and to what extent can the usage of civil law remedies contribute to the protection of public interests in cases of actual, though uncriminalized, involvment in a crime.</jats:p>