Punishment for car spares theft to be toughened in Armenia 

ArmInfo. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia proposed that Armenia toughen the punishment for theft of auto parts, including from cars. The draft of the  corresponding amendments to the Criminal Code was approved at a  meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on March 27.

As noted in the explanation to the document, according to the current  legal norms, for the theft of parts, devices or equipment of vehicles  (if they do not contain the features qualified in part by Article 254  of the Criminal Code), a person is punished by a fine of up to twenty  maximum permissible wages, or community service for a period of  eighty to one hundred and fifty hours, or restriction of liberty for  up to two years, or short-term imprisonment for up to two months, or  imprisonment for up to two years, and in such cases, the courts,  often taking into account the insignificant severity of the crime,  rarely apply a preventive measure in the form of detention, and the  punishments are assigned accordingly. There are cases when a person  who has committed a crime, having the status of an accused and being  at large, continues to engage in illegal activities and commit thefts  from vehicles.

Therefore, in order to increase the effectiveness of the fight  against these crimes, it is proposed to amend the Criminal Code.

The draft law provides for classifying the theft of parts, devices or  equipment of a vehicle (committed outside the vehicle) as the second  part of the crime , in which case it will be considered not a  minor crime, but a medium-gravity crime.

After the adoption of the draft law, a person who has committed this  crime will be punished by a fine of 20 to 50 thousand drams, or  community service for a period of one hundred and fifty to two  hundred and seventy hours, or restriction of freedom for a period of  one year to three years, or short-term arrest for a period of one  month to two months, or imprisonment for a period of two to five  years.

At the same time, after the adoption of the draft law, broader  opportunities will be created in judicial practice for the use of a  preventive measure in the form of detention in order to prevent the  commission of new crimes during the investigation of this type of  crime.