THE PROBLEM OF JUVENILE CRIME IN UKRAINE AND MEASURES FOR ITS PREVENTION

INTRODUCTION Juvenile crime is deviance of a minor from socially established norms and rules. Unfortunately, that kind of crime is the most negative part of the deviant behavior of minors, so domestic and foreign scholars have a long-held belief that one of the most important problems of the research of criminology is juvenile crime. Covering the problem of juvenile crime in Ukraine, the author follows the fact that its scientific-theoretical analysis should be considered as a part of the overall crime in society because it evolves under the effects of the same factors that the crime in general. For this very reason, it is impossible to build a good democratic society without paying due attention to minors. Moreover, juvenile crime is an indicator of sustainable development of transitive society and rather mass social phenomenon which takes place in all countries, and therewith it always gains the attention of society. Unfortunately, our country is no exception.Thefts, fights, carjacking, the consumption of alcoholic beverages and drugs (dealing), acts of cruelty, violence and even rapes and murders have become the lifestyle for many minors. But most importantly, juvenile offenders annually fall into the ranks of adult crime 1 . Hence, it is essential to support the standpoint of domestic scholars that juvenile crime is one of the urgent criminological problems which reflects the main crime trends in the country. It is an indicator of the moral health of society and allows predicting general prospects and possible directions for the development of crime manifestations for the future. Studying causal chain which clarifies criminal behavior of minors and is a quite complicated and multifarious one, it is possible to