SOCIAL SECURITY AND CRIME IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY: PROBLEMS, INSTRUMENTS, TRENDS IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRAINE

The authors follow structural functionalism and neofunctionalism as dominant methodology for interpretation of social security as a social institution (mechanism) controlling homeostasis and sustainability of the social system (society). Social security in the contemporary society is a very complex, ambiguous matter. It is a synthetic, integrative unlike many other types of security, since it accumulates, on the one hand, partial processes, relevant data and at the same time allows to focus on the main directions of search. Because of the plural problems (challenges, threats, dangers, etc.) the paper leaves for analysis only those that threaten stability and sustainable development of society (in Ukraine and in developed European states) as such. Crime is one of such problems. The authors stressed the importance of trust in the public and social institutions fighting crime, presenting and analyzing relevant data. The analysis of problems related to counteraction to crime is provided by authors in the context of reforms in Ukrainian society, is compared with EU neighboring states’ realities, based on statistical data as well as on the results of public opinion polls.

Ключевые слова: безопасность, социальная безопасность, публичная безопасность, общественная безопасность, преступность, реформы в обществе Contemporary society, apparently more than ever, faces many problems, which threaten its sustainable development and even existence. Obviously, it actualizes (should actualize) the focused research interest in their study by using of methodological tools of many social sciences and humanities, in particular sociology, as the main, central in their search. The problem of security, is one of such problems, the importance of which both in the theoretical and practical dimensions can't be exaggerated. So, on the one hand, it is not surprising that this concept (and phenomenon) is actively explored by political scientists, economists, media researches, psychologists, environmentalists, etc. as well as practical specialists in relevant fields. On the other hand, it is surprising that sociologists are significantly less active in the studying of security, which, among other issues, negatively affects the integrity, complexity of its analysis.
Securing security is a priority value, of which nowadays society is becoming more aware. Growing number of political, economic, social, information, ecological, military etc. dangers and threats of both traditional and new type, which needs new mechanisms, tools and culture to react; the further development of society, its quality of life (especially in more developed countries) is more influenced by various opportunities for stability and security rather than economic factors; securing security becomes influential, weighty factor in global, international cooperation, because effect the formation of new society, etc. are among them; globalization (first of all, political and economic) in the last decades has made an impact on crime globalization as well. A free and open market as never before incited an economic growth and simultaneously opened unlimited opportunities for incidence of shadow business. Organized crime itself is being diversified and globalized, and organized crime groups are becoming a problem and a threat to security (national and international). Transnational organized crime at the same time provokes corruption and becomes infiltrated into business and politics, and thus threaten the stability of society.
Security, security maintenance in the contemporary society (global as a whole), as well known, is a very complex, ambiguous and paradoxical matter. It requires constant and consecutive research, which is determined by various factors, such as, for instance, new issues related to transformation (political, economic, social, legal system, etc.) which bring quality features, changes of society, world. Another important issue is the following: political, social, economic, etc. transformations have been successfully implemented in different countries of Central and Eastern Europe, neighboring Ukraine, but that reforms are still on the way and are far from complete in others (like Ukraine). It seems that the advantage of sociological research' focus on security could be the analysis of the concept of social security.
The concept of security as well as social security has not yet received the proper level of comprehension, conceptualization in sociology, other Social sciences and Humanities (it's quite true for Ukraine) as, say, national, economic, informational or public security, and therefore it is one that, among other things, provides broad horizons of the very scientific search, as well as development of relevant indicators and its measurement.
Studying it, it is likely that one should focus on the concept of security and, therefore, engage in the analysis of various concepts, categories and terms like risk, danger, threat, disaster, stability, well-being, quality of life, fear, freedom, human rights, globalization, crisis society, modernization, public security policy, etc.
Social security is such a condition (and trends in its changes) in which the state provides stability and sustainability of the processes of the population's reproduction, decent living conditions of the person. We may say that security reflects the functionality, and, accordingly, the functional state of the social system (social institution, social subsystem, society as a whole). It is a mechanism (complex of mechanisms) of maintaining the balance, system stability (in more detail, please, see [Nikolayevskyy 2014]).
In other words, social security is a synthetic, integrative unlike many other types of security 1 , since it accumulates, on the one hand, partial processes, relevant data, results in various areas, spheres of the society, and on the other hand -allows to focus on the main directions of (re)search. Also, because of the plural problems (challenges, threats, dangers, etc.) the paper leaves for further analysis only those that threaten stability and sustainable development of society as such.
In our opinion, it is natural that the specific structure of social security in different societies is different, thus, it depends directly on the type and nature of society.
However, unlike analogous strategies of developed countries that can be defined as strategies for sustainable development, in Ukraine, such a strategy should be defined as a strategy not only for sustainable development, but, first of all, one (strategy) of transformation and reform, that is, a development strategy aimed at the effective solving of a number of political, economic and social problems. And more, in the list of Ukraine's priority national interests social interests should occupy a special place 2 . That's why, it seems important to underline, that one has to rely also on the concept of social and focus on social problems. In this context (social security) among the problems, which are the serious threats to contemporary society, are various ones (quality of life, first of all, the level of material wellbeing, health, demographic problems, as well as human rights, military threats, stability of society and many others). Many of them are also relevant for the European Union and Ukrainian societies. At the same time, one of such problems, which is rather acute (objectively and according to subjective perception of the population) in Ukrainian society, but not only, from our point of view, relate to crime and connected issues (violent crimes, corruption, juvenile delinquency, crimes against property, etc.). Crime is a regular and inevitable phenomenon. It is, however, evident that crime remains the most relevant problem of public security.
For instance, in the case of Ukraine, an increase in crime in 2017 is among the most weighty fears (43%), that is even more than the fear of the attack by an external enemy (38%). According to the data of survey (2017) Crime is not only one of the key factors, exerting an effect on social security, as well as public security as its subelement, the security system as a whole, but also a common human problem. Commission of a crime violates both a victim's and public interest. Priority of crime prevention primarily is related to the Western values of democracy. Therefore, it's natural that special attention is devoted to this area at the EU level. Crime prevention in the Lisbon Treaty is referred to the key building blocks to establish and maintain an area of freedom, security and justice. Also, the Stockholm Program reiterated the importance of crime prevention, and by Council Decision 2001/427/TVR, which was repealed by Council Decision 2009/902/TVR, the European Crime Prevention Network was set up aiming at facilitating cooperation, maintaining contacts and exchange of information and experience in the field of crime prevention. [Tumalavičius 2017] However, the declarative reiteration of prevention importance is not enough to achieve the targeted results. In Eastern Europe, unlike West European countries, possessing long-term democracy traditions, crime prevention was accorded traditionally less attention. Also, should be understood that the effectiveness of counteracting crime directly depends on the strength, «power» of those public institutions that are responsible for this direction of activity, and by that, depends on trust in them.
The data in the Table 1 show more or less well-balanced levels of trust to one of the most important institutions -the police -in 8 of 9 EU member states and simultaneously the but, at the same time stressing the importance of their acceleration, the strengthening of the fight against corruption. Speaking at the Atlantic Council on March 29, 2018, prof. F. Fukuyama (Stanford University) noted that Ukraine is an important state in Europe and Eurasia, therefore, the impact of what is happening in this country will spread to other parts of the world. The current democratic transformation in Ukraine is, in fact, part of the global process of struggle for democracy with populism and authoritarianism, which is why the success of Ukrainians will be of great significance not only for Europe but also for the world as a whole [Peremoga Ukrayiny..  ** the balance is calculated by the formula: balance = "tend to trust" -"tend not to trust"; except for Ukraine, authors' calculations.
Of course, there are different levels of trust to public and social institutions in Ukraine. Among the public and social institutions, volunteers' organizations, Church, Armed forces of Ukraine, volunteer battalions, the National Guard of Ukraine, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, NGO's, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian Mass media the amount of Ukrainians, who trust to them is more compared to those, who don't trust. But at the same time (and in the context of our analysis it is crucial) the levels of trust to many other institutions (Prosecutor's office, Judicature, Security Service, Parliament, Government, President), which are at the forefront in counteracting crime in neighbouring Ukraine EU states and Ukraine differ. In case of EU states we mainly can talk about higher levels of trust, as well as a positive balance of trust-distrust to many of that institutions, in Ukraine the situation is much worse, which (in Ukraine) dramatically complicates their activities.
[Stavlennya... 2017] Accordingly, penal policy by the duration of imprisonment and the number of prisoners in the region is somewhat stricter than in Western Europe, since it is traditionally deemed to be a proper reaction to crimes. One can see (please, look at Table 2) that in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, as well as in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia a level of imprisonment is one of the highest in Europe. For instance, Ukraine is 42 nd (resp. 16 th3 ) among 57 European states in the ranking list. A few moments are attracting attention also.
Here are some of them, which are eloquent enough. Overall, the prison population trend in the period 2000 -2017 points to a decline in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Ukraine, which is mostly corresponds to the trend for the EU. [World... 2017] It is evident that the existing situation is not compatible only with the priorities of these states, as some of them are the integral part of the EU and second state (Ukraine) in its reform as a whole is guided by the rules, practices and values of EU. In the contemporary doctrine and practice it is still more acknowledged that application of the penalty of imprisonment is not only ineffective but also has a negative impact on the individuality of convicts, and it is difficult to neutralize such impact both by the internal procedures established in the imprisonment facilities and by resocialization programs.
A high level of imprisonment witnesses not only the high recidivism of crimes, but first of all the inadequate reaction to crime when focus is towards fighting consequences rather than causes. What is more, a high level of imprisonment reflects not only the improper methods for ensuring the fight against crime and security of society, this being one of the key obstacles in the prevention effectiveness (since persons after serving the imprisonment term experience stigmatization and get resocialized with much more difficulty), but also the inefficiency of prevention per se since it is related to high crime recidivism.
This predetermines the need to be in search of opportunities for optimizing crime prevention, first of all, by identifying the problems in this field.
Concluding, we can say, that at the lawmaking stage, the very important problem is too weak control of compatibility and efficiency of the sub-statutory implementing legal acts. At the stage of law application, ineffectiveness of control over criminal processes is conditioned by the poor quality of institutional activities, due to which distrust in institutions and crime latency get enhanced. Effectiveness of control over criminal processes depends on the prevention efficiency; therefore, as much as possible attention should be devoted to the social prevention measures of social assistance and persuasion type, purposeful and focused on specific problems. Even though in Ukraine (as well as in EU states) the perception of renovating a mandatory crime prevention system is observed, however, it is possible to indicate the following obstacles in prevention effectiveness, like the absence of the structural centre; legal regulation of crime prevention, hindering to ensure the efficiency of prevention projects; lack in the control of the real prevention activity efficiency; subjective standpoints and approaches of prevention actors and lack of self-education.