Abstract: the article examines the signs that precede the development of criminal infection and involvement in the criminal subculture among convicts held in correctional institutions of the Penal Enforcement System of the Russian Federation. The authors note that timely preventive psychological and pedagogical influence is effective measures to counter the spread of criminal infection among convicts. The work notes social, psychological, moral and ethical characteristics that can be considered conducive to the development of criminal infection and involvement in the criminal subculture. As the researchers note, “movement” to the upper levels of the criminal hierarchy is difficult, while “going down” is easy and does not require a lot of time. Therefore, maintaining your criminal status is necessary constantly. The subject touches on the attitude to work. This problem reflects a whole layer of the system of values and priorities, which in turn shows the life guidelines of the convict. The information obtained in the publication will make it possible to more effectively organize the process of serving a sentence and correcting a convict. The attitude to work is an important diagnostic feature. This article addresses the issue of convicts who, in the presence of dependent attitudes, but do not share the ideas of the criminal subculture, are criminally not infected. Such convicts, being in a confined space, in a correctional colony, can have a high criminogenic potential. At the moment, there can hardly be any doubt that the very formulation of criminal requirements makes sense, as it is understood that these requirements and assessments contain a generally valid content, with which every convicted person must agree.
Keywords: attitude to work, labor, criminal infection, criminal subculture, involvement in socially useful work, convicts, crimes