The article deals with general issues of punishment that are important for the theory of criminal law and law-enforcement practice, approaches to determining its essential features, special rules for imposing punishment for an incomplete crime and a crime committed in complicity, taking into account when sentencing the severity of the person’s act, the degree of criminal intent and certain features of the terminological formulations used in sentencing, in particular, “separate episodes of criminal activity” that are a part of complex single crimes or are separate compositions of identical crimes and are part of replication as forms of multiple crimes.

It was stated that, taking into account the current state of the dynamics and tendencies of the spread of crimes, a necessary law to strengthen the rule of law is the criminal law designed to combat crime by bringing to justice the perpetrators and sentencing them.

It is indicated that punishment is one of the means of preventing crime. Among all measures of state coercion, it is the most stringent and is used only for committing socially dangerous acts. Issues have been identified that remain insufficiently studied or have not found their final solution, in particular: signs of punishment; purpose (goal) punishment; ascertaining which criminal law measures should be deemed appropriate for achieving the goal of punishment; issues of imbalance of sanctions in separate norms; law enforcement practice in sentencing on the basis of Part 1 of Article 70 and Part 4 of Article 70 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in the presence of the actions of a person “separate episodes of criminal activity”.

The main signs of punishment are defined. 1. Punishment is a measure of state coercion that is provided for only by law and is applied on behalf of the state by the relevant government body. 2. Punishment can only be applied to a person convicted of a crime under criminal law. 3. Punishment is applied on behalf of the state only by the relevant authority – the court and appointed by conviction. 4. Punishment is a penalty imposing restrictions on the rights and freedoms of a convicted person, imposes an obligation on the convicted person to bear the losses and restrictions associated with his application. 5. Punishment is the logical legal consequence of a crime. 6. Punishment is public. 7. Punishment entails a special legal consequence – a conviction.

Sentences for the unfinished crime and for the crime committed in complicity, which is settled in Article 68 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and applies to special rules of sentencing, are examined.

The range of issues related to the terms used in the legislation and requiring unambiguous interpretation has been determined. In particular, the terminological turnover “separate episodes of criminal activity” was analyzed, as well as the specialized term “criminal activity”. It is noted that in sentencing, the possibility of correct interpretation of the relevant norm becomes of particular importance.

Key words: punishment, sentencing, crime, severity of the act, unfinished crime, complicity, separate episodes of criminal activity.

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