Criminal and legal characteristics of criminal intent

Purpose This paper aims to consider the problems related to criminal legal characteristics of the crime objective and to analyze specific features of the crime objective as the subjective aspect of crime. Design/methodology/approach Research methodology used in studying the criminal legal characteristics of the crime objective was based on the dialectical method of scientific cognition of the social and legal phenomena, its laws and categories. The author used general scientific research methods, systematic, historical, logical and functional, and observation, analysis, comparison and the empirical sociological method. Findings Definition of the crime objective as one of the subjective aspects related to the socially dangerous act will be helpful to detect the real causes of crime and to apply the right type and term of punishment. The crime objective should be understood as the important, well-defined features of conscious mental image of the future desired result, which determines the orientation and order of various actions aimed at crime commitment. Originality/value The paper substantiated the need to determine crime objective as one of the signs of the subjective aspect of crime. This will reveal the real causes of crime and apply the right type and term of punishment. It was established that the crime objective was a psychological phenomenon, and the question of its analysis and study had to be settled with regard to psychology and criminology, which will influence its cognition. The paper provided a definition of crime objective. Based on a scientific approach to the theoretical definition of the objective in the criminal law and the place in the subjective aspect of crime, the author presumed that crime objective had to be regarded as an optional feature of the subjective aspect of crime.